SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Race fans around the world should keep an eye on their mailboxes. The tickets for the 108th Running of the Indianapolis 500 were mailed out on March 12.
Drivers Felix Rosenqvist and Sting Ray Robb helped Indianapolis Motor Speedway staffers load more than 26,000 blue envelopes containing more than 190,000 tickets to events at IMS during the Month of May, including practice, qualifications, concerts and the Indy 500.
"This is really cool," Robb said. "It’s the start of what we dream about during our offseason, and it feels like it’s becoming real as we approach the Month of May."
Robb and Rosenqvist signed some of the envelopes, leaving a special message to the race fan who will receive them. Some of Rosenqvist's special deliveries were addressed to fans in his native Sweden.
"It’s so cool that people are coming from all around the world to watch this race. It means so much to me," Rosenqvist said. "I actually live here in Indy now, and the Indy 500 is both the greatest race in the world and my home race, but the fact that people are coming from my home country to watch, it gives you an idea how big it is."
Employees in the IMS ticket office and other departments worked about 800 hours over 48 days to stuff the envelopes and get them ready for the mail.
In addition to each of the 50 states, envelopes were mailed to 35 countries internationally.
The tradition of using blue envelopes to ship Indy 500 tickets started about 30 years ago, according to IMS. Tickets were originally mailed in brown or gray envelopes, but after the Brickyard 400 started in 1994, IMS decided to color-code the envelopes for different events at the track.
Tickets for this year's race, scheduled for Sunday, May 26, and other Month of May events at IMS, are available at IMS.com/tickets or at the IMS Ticket Office.