IMS creative team shares inspiration for garage door murals and program

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – With a gloomy first day on the track Tuesday, race fans took some extra time heading to the grandstands, stopping to take a look at the colorful creations along the way.

“We started this project a couple years ago where we were like, ‘there’s just so many blank walls here at the track,’ and we were like, ‘why don’t we fill them with something pretty?’”, said Grace Keller, one of the senior graphic designers.

The creative team at IMS often spends several weeks on their garage door murals, conceptualizing and bringing them to life ahead of race day.

Each piece encapsulates some of the historic moments from the 500, and for this project, the sky’s the limit.

“You come in on race day and you’re like, ‘Wow, just still taken aback, regardless of how many years you’ve been here,'” said another artist, Chloie Fisher.

“We have Dan Weldon’s win in 2011, we have all the four-time winners up here, we got Helio hanging on the fence, the anniversary of the spin and win,” said Keller, listing off some of the iconic moments in her mural. 

Artist Shae Beechler designed her garage door mural to celebrate over a full century of speed.

“This is a kind of optical illusion of Peter DePaolo’s garage from 1925,” said Beechler.

Inside this year’s program, which Beechler helped design, folks can read more about DePaolo’s legacy.

“He broke the 100-mile-an-hour record going around the track, and it was just a super exciting time,” said Beechler.

With the fast-paced energy surrounding the month of May, Beechler wanted to focus on the love for racing for this year’s program.

“Inside you’ll find, in each section, love letters to May,” said Beechler. “We’ve had fans write love letters to us, and we decided to include those in the program, just to really make this about the fans.”

Also inside the program are special edition trading cards featuring the six back-to-back winners from the race.

Fans are already able to pick up this year’s program in the merch shops around IMS, along with some of the clothing designed by the team.

“If you feel like it, come here and take a picture and #500Fashion and post on social media,” said Lucy Laux, designer of the mural highlighting merchandise created by the team.