Mark Miles often has lunch at a restaurant not far from his office at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He says he is often stopped by race fans who tell him what the Indianapolis 500 means to them. The race, for many, is still a deeply cherished tradition.
Many major sporting events move from site to site, so fans do not tend to go to them every year. But they do for the Indy 500, which has been contested since 1911 on the same two-and-a-half-mile paved oval on the northwest side of Indianapolis.
Not long ago, a woman walked up to Miles, pointed to her husband, and asked Miles to guess how many consecutive Indy 500s he had attended.