As Louis Meyer and Wilbur Shaw emerged as the stars, the Speedway began claiming souls at a frightening rate: there were two in 1931; two more in 1932; five in 1933; two more in 1934; four in 1935.

Finally, the depression beginning to pass, major changes were made with sections of track resurfaced with tarmac. The same year Meyer won his third victory, an unrivaled achievement.

Wilbur Shaw was the man by now, winning in 1939 and 1940, the first man to score back-to-back victories. Going for a third, in 1941 he crashed and broke several vertebrae. Thus began an enduring legend, no man ever wins three in a row at Indy. The 1941 These were rebuilt, but by then war had broken out and once more Indianapolis was forgotten.

By 1945 the Speedway was in a sorry state, partially overgrown and crumbling. Rickenbacker decided to sell and the Speedway was bought by Tony Hulman. Major redevelopment began, beginning with new grandstands and followed up over the years by a museum, On the racing front, the late Forties belonged to Mauri Rose, who won in 1947 and 1948. His car broke just eight laps from home the following year while shadowing the leader.

After Rose retired in 1951 a new star emerged: Billy Vukovich, the Mad Russian. With nine laps of the 1952 race left his car broke and 22-year-old Troy Ruttman swept by to become youngest winner of the Indy 500. Vukovich won in 1953 and 1954 and was lea With speeds for a single lap creeping ever closer to 150mph, the Indy 500 continued to pack in the crowds. They were thrilled by the speeds and the crashes, a notable one in 1958 seeing the largest crash in the Speedway's history, car after car piled in Ever since 1950 Indy had been a nominal round of the Formula 1 World Championship, and although this ended in 1960, the following years saw the beginnings of a foreign invasion.

The bricks were paved over with asphalt in 1961 and in 1963 Jim Clark arrived with his rear-engined Lotus and the big roadsters were given notice that their days were numbered. AJ Foyt won the last front-engined victory in 1964 and a year later Clark ou In the late Sixties came the new generation who would dominate Indy through to the Eighties: Foyt, Mario Andretti, Johnny Rutherford, Gordon Johncock and the Unser Brothers, Bobby and Al. By 1988 Foyt (competing that year in his 30th Indy 500) had won f In the Eighties, with speeds up to 200mph, a Californian called Rick Mears emerged, winning three times, while Danny Sullivan, winner in 1985, spun at high speed on his way to an incredible victory.

Tony George, grandson of Tony Hulman, took over the running of the Speedway in January 1990 and he soon added new events to the Indianapolis calendar: the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race and an International Race of Champions and continued the policy of const The USA had not staged an F1 Grand Prix since Phoenix in 1991. In 1998 George agreed a deal with Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone for Indianapolis to host the United States Grand Prix in 2000 and funded a massive construction program to build a Formula

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