INDIANAPOLIS — Many homeowners scramble to mow their lawns between spring showers. They work hard to keep their yards looking their best, especially when company is coming.
Now imagine if that lawn amounted to more than 600 acres of turf in an almost 1,000-acre property, and the guests coming over numbered about 350,000. Then, add an 18-hole professional golf course to the equation.
That’s the challenge faced by Jason Stewart, the grounds superintendent of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Brickyard Crossing, IMS’s golf course, and his team as they prepare for Sunday’s 109th Indianapolis 500.
Stewart’s office is in a building on the outside of IMS’s backstretch. It’s the home base of 15 full-time employees, including three full-time mechanics, one horticulturist and an additional 30 to 45 seasonal employees. It’s also home to about $3 million in equipment to keep the grounds as pristine as possible.
Scheduling and communications are huge challenges. The workers have to focus on times when fans aren’t there and the track isn’t in use in order to get their work done. And of course, unlike the claim in Roger Miller’s old song, it does rain in Indianapolis in the summertime. Sometimes the grounds crew has to set up temporary lighting to work by before the crowds arrive or a storm moves in.
There are miles of fiber-optic cables laid by network TV, timing and scoring and other entities to avoid when mowing, although invariably a line is clipped now and then.
The area around the grounds building also becomes a heliport in May, with many VIPs arriving and departing, which adds to the challenges of getting the work done.
There is herbicide and fertilizer to apply each spring. Typically some 30 acres of grass are reseeded each year. Some parking lots need new gravel. Shrubs need pruning. Trees need trimming, and now and then old ones need to be removed and new ones planted. There are some 5,000 irrigation sprinkler heads to maintain, as well as to drain in the fall. Approximately 10,000 spring/summer and winter annual flowers are planted, including the flowers for the victory podium for all IMS’s major events. There are edges to trim, mulch to apply, weeding to be done and leaves to blow, rake, and remove.
And then there’s that golf course. Designed by famous golf course architect Pete Dye, four holes are in the speedway’s infield, with the other 14 holes are adjacent to the backstretch.
Golfers demand fastidious conditions for their golf balls to traverse.
“The golf course demands the most work by a mile,” Stewart explained. “The track has scheduling and logistics challenges, but the golf course is very labor intensive. We use the same labor pool to work both. About 60 percent of the work goes toward the golf course, but it only accounts for about 200 of the 600 acres of turf on the property, so its cost per square feet to maintain is much more. The golf course has to be set up and manicured every single day; it doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday.”
This May marks Stewart’s 26th year as a full-time employee of IMS. Prior to that he worked there for two summers when he was a student at Purdue University. He’s from the west side of Indianapolis and was born and raised an IMS fan. “My parents have been to 57 or 58 consecutive Indy 500s,” he said.
When he was a college student he didn’t think that IMS would become his career, though. “In the 90s there were lots of resorts and golf courses being built everywhere, and I thought my ideal job would be taking care of some resort in the Caribbean,” he said. “But then I got married, and I do love the speedway, and it’s just the way it worked out.
“I became the golf course superintendent, and then when Roger [Penske] purchased IMS [in November 2019], he asked me to become the grounds superintendent of the track too,” he said. “The purchase went through, and then COVID hit. I was one of a handful of essential employees on the grounds, and I spent hours with Roger. We built a great rapport just driving around talking about what needed to be done.
“I would come home and tell my wife about spending hours with Roger Penske, just talking. Think about how many people would kill for just 15 minutes with a billionaire just to try to sell him something? He has high expectations and a definite love of this track. It’s really his passion. And he’s hands-on; we talk about everything: the trees, the grass, the irrigation system — just everything.
“For about a 10-year period before he purchased IMS some things were put off, so we had a lot to address, especially regarding trees in the parking lots and around the buildings,” Stewart added. “We removed a lot of trees that were in decline. Now we have a lot of systems in place and a lot of talented people on staff, and that is all due to Roger’s willingness to give us the resources we needed. He’s never had any qualms about spending money to improve the facility. It’s our job to meet his expectations. I feel privileged to be a part of such a historical venue. IMS is so special; it is truly the identity of our community.”
Stewart noted that time and effort are required to develop a staff and create a culture where people want to come to work. “Our work goes on even if it’s not sunny,” he noted. “At times it’s very labor-intensive work. We can be cold, wet, and tired. We have to work seven days a week from May to mid-October. Having enough staff to balance the workload and to create relationships, build trust, and improve communications are all things we strive for.”
An appreciation of the facility’s history is important too. “It’s such a unique place,” he continued. “The age of it, its history, and the fact that a golf course is part of it makes it very unique.”
One thing that might not be obvious about the grounds crew’s work is that it can also affect driver safety. Going off course at around 200 mph is always sketchy.
“When a car goes off the track, it could encounter ruts caused by recovery, construction, and maintenance vehicles,” Stewart explained. “We want everything adjacent to the racing surface to be as smooth as possible. We go over the grassy areas about 10-15 yards next to the track with rollers to make it as flat as possible, so even if a car goes off the track it won’t become unsettled. That’s especially important on the road course. There’s a lot of value in the aesthetics that shows you care, but there’s also safety to consider. Several drivers have told me they appreciate the effort we take in that regard.”
IMS has a history of research and development and being a proving ground for a wide variety of innovations. That includes the grounds department. One example is a robotic mower which could be seen last week mowing the lawn near the IMS museum.
Most of the landscaping equipment IMS uses is manufactured by Toro, because the track has a partnership with that company. “We trade assets a lot,” Stewart explained, “and Toro is developing that mower; we’re giving them the space.
“Robotic mowers are becoming more and more common, but they’re still in their infancy,” he continued. “It remains to be seen if they’ll end up developing big machines to mow a large area or smaller machines more like the robotic vacuum cleaners we have today. Time will tell.”
Helping the next generation is also important, and the grounds department participates in an impressive internship program with Purdue and other universities.
“Of the 45 seasonal employees we have, we’ve had up to 20 made up of interns,” Stewart explained. “We’re getting a lot of sports marketing majors. You wouldn’t think groundskeeping would be part of sports marketing, but it gives them knowledge about one aspect of pro sports, and it fulfills their course requirements. We try to also get them involved with some of our partnerships with pro teams like the Indianapolis Indians, the Colts, and the Pacers. They have a shadow program, and we give them quite a bit of experience. As part of their studies they have to come up with a project that they believe could benefit the facility. It could be something like rebuilding a bridge to a lower-level landscaping upgrade, but it’s all good experience for them.”
That’s another example of how IMS works with a wide range of companies, universities, and other sports.
And racing even comes back to that association with golf.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but the winner of the Indy 500 gets a lifetime membership to our Brickyard Crossings golf course,” Stewart said. “Ryan Hunter-Reay and Sebastien Bourdais play there a lot, but Scott McLaughlin is the diehard golfer in IndyCar these days. He even played 36 holes in two rounds at the Brickyard the other day.”
Hunter-Reay won the 500 in 2014. Bourdais isn’t entered this year. McLaughlin starts tenth on Sunday. Should he win, he’ll enjoy a huge winner’s payoff as well as save a great deal of money in green fees.
