Speedway landmark closing

Wow, am I getting old or what?

Speedway landmark closing

Speedway - A motel that has been a landmark in Speedway for 45 years will be torn down.

Joie Chitwood, president and COO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, announced Monday that the Brickyard Crossing Inn will close immediately and will be razed in a few months.

The 96-room motel was built in 1963 on the eastern edge of the IMS grounds.

"To bring the motel up to the standards and quality of what guests expect at the Speedway would require significant capital expenditures," Chitwood said. "After reviewing the alternatives, we have decided to discontinue its operation."

Like the Speedway, the Brickyard Crossing Inn has famous history. Besides being the home for several Indianapolis 500 drivers and owners during the month of May, scenes from Paul Newman's movie "Winning" were filmed in rooms of the motel.

"Got to remember, at that time when it was built, there wasn't such thing as a race driver having a fancy, multi-million dollar van to live in when they were at the race track, so a lot of them stayed there," former Speedway public address announcer Tom Carnegie. He also had a room at the hotel, staying down the hall from stars like Newman and race winners A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti.

http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=9526963

without the Speedway motel.

I noticed that there were lots of empty seats at pretty much all of the racing venues this last year. What I didn't know at the time was that entire bleacher sections were covered up with advertising banners so it was even worse than it looked.