As the Indianapolis 500 is entering its fourth year with Roger Penske as the owner, it’s starting to feel like the good old days at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Penske told me in an exclusive interview on Sunday that the crowd for Sunday’s 107^th Indianapolis 500 will be the largest since the sold-out crowd that attended the 100^th Indianapolis 500 in 2016.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles also confirmed that as of last week, ticket sales reached last year’s level and demand continues to rise heading into Race Day on Sunday.

For decades, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway never released attendance figures or the exact number of seats that the world’s largest stadium holds. But after this weekend’s dramatic qualifications, IMS officials said almost 85,000 fans visited IMS over two days to watch the stars of the NTT IndyCar Series qualify for the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge.

According to IMS, it was the most attended PPG presents Armed Forces Qualifying weekend in over a decade. Tickets for the “500” continue to move at a rapid clip, up year-over-year and building toward the most attended Race Day since the 100^th Running in 2016.

“In order for it to be on track, we had to be consistent with the sales day over day to what we had in 2022,” Boles explained to me. “Not only have we been consistent, we’ve been above 2022.

“If today goes the way the last few days have gone, we will be on target to reach the same attendance as we did on Race Day by today.

“It’s on target to be a bigger race than it has been since 2016.”

Boles said in 2016, there were 350,000 total spectators on the grounds of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Although crowds were higher than that in other years for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the grandstand seating has been rearranged and there is much less infield space available than in the 1960s.

A road course was constructed for Formula One beginning with the first United States Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2000. That event ran through 2007.

Beginning in 2014, a modified road course has been used for the NTT IndyCar Series. Later this year, IMSA Sports Cars returns for the “Battle on the Bricks” on that road course.

That greatly reduced the space for infield patrons to turn the annual gather at the Indianapolis 500 into a high-speed “Woodstock” festival.

Today’s infield features spectator mounds that are family friendly. Younger fans can still let loose in the “Snake Pit” which features live musical entertainment before and during the race.

For the 100^th Indianapolis 500 in 2016, tickets to all seats in the grandstand were sold and the infield tickets were purchased in advance. To maintain crowd control, IMS officials cutoff sales once it hit 350,000 total for grandstands and infield and lifted the television blackout in the Indianapolis area for the first time since 1951.

“In 2016, we were right at 350,000,” Boles confirmed. “We have 232,000 permanent seats and we added some chairs into the Tower Terrace and had 235,000 seats and over 100,000 people in the infield.

“This year, we have 232,000 seats and we will be within 5,000 to 10,000 of all those seats gone, plus with the crowd we get in the infield, we will be pushing the 325,000 range.”

In addition to the spectator count, there is the large number of race team members, officials, media, suite workers, etc. that can be as high as 12,000.

That will once again make the Indianapolis 500 the largest single-day sporting event in the world.

With scanned tickets instead of turnstile counts, sporting events can have a more accurate count of the number of people on the property.

“Some doesn’t get scanned, like the Bronze and Silver Badges that don’t get scanned,” Boles explained. “If you are an individual that buys a ticket, we know where you are for the most part. That has been helpful

“Every day except for May 16 when it rained, has been up since before and even stronger than 2016. It has really been a good lead-up to the Indianapolis 500.”

Boles said this year’s qualification crowd was slightly more on Sunday than on Saturday for the second-straight year. That is the day the Indianapolis 500 Pole and Last Chance Qualifying took place.

There was also an extra sense of excitement in the crowd.

“The excitement and the drama were definitely something that makes it a lot better,” Boles said. “Those days are when the true race fans that come out.”

Boles was also excited that a larger number of kids have been at the track, which is very important to create new fans for the event. Children 15 and under are allowed into the track for practice and qualifications for free.

Race Day, though, everyone needs a ticket.

Roger Penske, the winningest car owner in Indianapolis 500 history with 18 wins in the big race, is now the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar.

He purchased the massive facility that hosts the world’s largest sporting even on November 4, 2019, from Indiana’s Hulman-George Family.

Penske has invested heavily into upgrading and improving the facility, including another $11 million capital improvements since last year’s race.

“The big screens in the infield for the spectator mounds is pretty big,” Boles said. “We also moved the TV compound outside of Turn 4 and allowing the midway to be in the heart of the track makes things a lot better.

“There is a ton of new asphalt behind Turn 1 that was a significant spend.

“We put over $1 million into the public address system. It seems that everything you want to fix here starts at $100,000 and goes up. When you start adding that up, it’s over $10 million and almost $50 million in improvement since 2020, there is still so much more to go.”

Business is good at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as it prepares to host the greatest tradition in racing with one of the world’s greatest sporting events on Sunday, May 28.

It was first held on May 30, 1911, and that legacy continues today.

“Business is great,” Boles said. “The fans are what makes this place work and when the fans come like they come, it makes you feel good about all the hours you put in the rest of the year.

“Business is good because our fans see an owner that is invested and wants it to be better and every day, he is trying to make the customer experience better. That is his first thought.”

Boles revealed as he walks around the Speedway, fans stop him and say, ‘Tell Roger Penske, thank you.’

“It’s a pretty significant number that they see his passion and investment,” Boles said.

As for the television blackout, that will once again continue on Sunday as there remains tickets to be sold. It’s a point of contention for many Indy 500 fans, but the Penske and the staff at IMS continue to maintain there is a reason for the blackout, even in 2023.

They will not be able to view the race live on NBC or stream it on Peacock. It will air on the NBC affiliate, WTHR Channel 13, in Indianapolis on Sunday night.

“The most important race we have in the year is the Indianapolis 500 and what makes it electric are the fans that are here,” Boles said. “The minute you erode the fans that are here, then the electricity starts to decline and that transfers to TV.

“Just from a perception standpoint, it’s important for us to do.

“We’ve said all along, if we get to the point where we sell all of our reserved seats and get to a capacity in the infield, we think is fair, then we are happy to readdress it.

“But we are completely different from an NFL franchise that gets $300 million a year in television revenue per franchise. We don’t get anything close to that.

“It’s not about greed; it’s not about making more money. It’s about making sure the electricity inside of the venue is the electricity they expect when they are here and that transfers over to the TV broadcast.”