A Racing Passport Exclusive
500 Miles and a Weekend You'll Be Telling People About for the Rest of Your Life.
Three hundred thousand people will be at the Speedway, and most of them will spend the weekend wondering where to go. You won't. On Carb Day, Legends Day and race morning, Robert Earl is your guide: where to sit so you can actually see, where to be and when, a tour through the pits and the IMS Museum, and his own guide to what to watch for once the green flag drops. Same race. A completely different weekend.
Reserve in full and save $100, or hold your place with a $400 deposit and three easy $300 payments through April 15. One host, one small group, one race a year.
Three hundred thousand people, and most of them spend the weekend wondering where to go.
Here's what nobody tells you about the 500. The race is the easy part. It's everything around it that trips people up: which gate, which seat actually shows you the action, where to be for the Pit Stop Challenge, how early is early enough on race morning. Most people figure it out by getting it wrong, and by then half the weekend is gone.
That's what I'm there for. On Carb Day, Legends Day and race morning, I'm your guide. I meet the group each morning, show you where to sit and where to be, take you through the pits and the IMS Museum, and hand you what twenty-seven straight years at this race have taught me about what to watch for. When the green flag drops you're in your own seat, and you know what you're looking at.
You'll never be the tourist wondering where to go.
See how the weekend unfolds →
Mine started in front of a transistor radio.
My grandfather sat me down in front of a transistor radio for the IMS Radio Network broadcast, and that was it. Foyt, Rutherford, Andretti, the Unsers, Tom Sneva. I couldn't see a single lap and I was hooked for life. At fifteen I was working a late-model stock car pit crew in Yakima, Washington, learning the difference between watching a race and understanding one from the inside.
I've been to the Indianapolis 500 in person every year since 2000. I have never missed one. In 2019 I launched 33 Dreams of Indy as credentialed motorsport media, starting at Gateway, and built real relationships in the Road to Indy paddock, the USF2000 and Indy NXT ladder that feeds the 500. That access, and those years, are what I bring to your weekend.
I'll be honest with you about one thing. Every single year, when they sing "Back Home Again in Indiana" and the balloons go up, a tear comes to my eye. It has not worn off in more than two decades, and it never will. That's the feeling I want you standing inside of, not squinting at from a distance wondering what everyone's cheering for.
My wife Stacy and I run the travel side through Early and Away, so a licensed advisor handles your trip and I handle your race. The whole reason Racing Passport exists is to close the gap between attending a race and understanding it. Nowhere is that gap bigger, or worth closing more, than here.
Robert Earl · Founder, Racing Passport
The moments you'll come home talking about.
Three days, Friday through Sunday. I'm with the group for the parts where knowing the place matters most: Carb Day, Legends Day and race morning. Here's what that looks like.
Final practice, the Pit Stop Challenge and the Speedway at its loudest. I'll show you where to sit so you can actually see, get you to the front stretch for the Pit Stop Challenge with my what-to-watch-for guide in hand, and take you on a walk by the Pagoda.
I'll show you where to watch the Drivers Meeting, then take you through the pits and the newly renovated IMS Museum with someone who knows what you're looking at. It's the day the history of this place comes alive.
We meet at the hotel before the bus, and I show you where to be and when, so you're settled before the crowd swells to three hundred thousand. You'll already have my race-day guide: what to watch for, and where the 500 usually gets decided.
You watch the race from your own seat, knowing what to look for: the pit windows, the yellows, the fuel numbers, the final stops. Afterward I'm at the hotel, and we talk it through, from the start to the milk in Victory Lane.
The trip gets you there. This is what you'll be talking about.
A bucket-list Indy 500 adds up fast once the flights, the room, the tickets, and the days off are in. You'll spend all of it either way. The one thing that decides whether it becomes the race you never stop talking about, or a long, loud afternoon that blurs together, is the smallest line on the invoice: someone who knows the place, showing you where to be and what to watch for. Set against everything else the weekend costs, it's almost nothing. Set against the race you'll actually remember, it's the whole thing.
- Carb Day: where to sit so you can actually see, the Pit Stop Challenge, and a walk by the Pagoda
- Legends Day: the Drivers Meeting, a tour through the pits, and the IMS Museum
- Race morning: we meet at the hotel, and I show you where to be and when, before the crowd swells
- My what-to-watch-for guides, one for the Pit Stop Challenge and one for race day, from twenty-seven straight years at this race
- After the checkered flag, time together at the hotel to talk the race through
Added on top of your Indy 500 travel package (which covers your room and race tickets). One price covers the whole weekend, whichever days you join. During the race you watch from your own seat.
One charge and you're set. Reserved, done, and $100 less than the plan. Nothing left to think about before May.
Reserve in Full$1,300 total: $400 today, then three equal $300 payments on your saved card, the last one by April 15, 2027. Nothing to remember.
Hold My Place for $400Reserve now and we build the whole trip around your place. Secure checkout, handled by Stripe.
Here's the honest part: I'm one person, and I keep the group small on purpose so the walks and the time together stay personal. I can't be in two places, and the calendar doesn't move. The best seats in the travel packages go with the earliest reservations, so reserving now is how you make sure yours is one of the good ones.
The Greatest Spectacle in Racing
Around three hundred thousand people fill that track, the largest single-day sporting event in the world. Most of them spend the weekend wondering where to go. You'll already know.
You don't have to be an expert to feel it. You just need to know what to watch for.
The 500 is 200 laps and 500 miles, and for long stretches it can look calm from the stands, cars flowing around the two-and-a-half-mile oval at more than two hundred miles an hour. Underneath that calm, the race is always moving. A green-flag stop cycles the order. A yellow at the wrong moment traps a leader a lap down. Every team is running fuel numbers in the background, and somewhere around lap 170 those numbers start deciding the winner. My race-day guide walks you through all of it before you get to the track, so when it happens in front of you, you see it for what it is.
And when it comes down to the final stint, the last stops, the fuel gamble, the run to the flag, you'll already know what's at stake for each car in front of you. That's when the greatest spectacle in racing stops being a spectacle you're watching and becomes a race you're inside of. That last stretch is the part that stays with you for years.
Friday through Sunday.
I'm with the group on Carb Day, Legends Day and race morning, and during the race you watch from your own seat. Come for all three days or just the ones that suit you. All Speedway times are subject to change.
Friday and Saturday
Meet at the hotel. We gather at the hotel before the bus, so nobody is left figuring out the day alone.
Where to sit so you can actually see. Final practice from seats that show you the action, then the front stretch for the Pit Stop Challenge with my what-to-watch-for guide in hand, and a walk by the Pagoda. The Speedway at its loudest.
The Drivers Meeting, the pits and the Museum. I'll show you where to watch the Drivers Meeting, then take you through the pits and the newly renovated IMS Museum. The day the whole place comes alive before the main event.
Sunday, Race Day
In before the masses. We meet at the hotel before the bus, and I show you where to be and when, so you're settled before three hundred thousand people are. You'll already have my race-day guide.
The pre-race pageantry. The on-track ceremonies, the historic laps, "Back Home Again in Indiana," the National Anthem and the flyover. Nothing in sports comes close, and your guide tells you why each piece matters.
"Drivers, start your engines." The most famous command in motorsport, then the pace laps and the field gathering up for the green. The hair on your arms will do the rest.
500 miles from your own seat. Eleven rows of three into Turn 1, then the pit windows, the yellows, the fuel numbers and the final stops. You'll know what to watch for, and what's at stake for each car in front of you.
The bricks and the milk. The run to the yard of bricks, the checkered flag, and the milk in Victory Lane. The moment you'll be telling people about for years.
We talk it through. Back at the hotel, I'm there to go over the race with you: the stops, the fuel, the finish, and everything you saw.
Let me walk you through it.
Press play and I'll tell you, in my own words, what the weekend with the host actually looks like, and why I do this.
We've got the whole trip covered too.
This page is the host experience, the guiding on the ground. To be at the Speedway you also need a room and race tickets, and that's handled: complete Indy 500 packages with downtown Indianapolis lodging close to Circle Centre, premium covered frontstretch seating, and a race-day motorcoach transfer with a police escort straight past the traffic. The logistics that eat into your weekend, already sorted.
Have a look at the packages, then add the host on top. That's the combination that makes the day.
The honest answers to what you're already wondering.
Do I have to book a travel package through you?
No. You'll need your own arrangements to be at the track that weekend, which for most people means a place to stay and race tickets. If you already have that handled, great, just add the host on top. If you'd rather not piece it together, we have full Indy 500 packages available (downtown lodging, premium covered seating, race-day police-escort transfer, and more), and we can set both up together.
Is it really worth it, whether it's my first Indy 500 or my fifteenth?
Both, for different reasons. If you've never been, a guide turns an overwhelming, three-hundred-thousand-person day into the race you'll measure every other against. If you've been before, this is the year you finally see the pits and the Museum with someone who knows them, and go into race day knowing what to watch for instead of guessing at it from your seat.
How big is the group? Will it feel like a tour bus?
No, and it never will, because I don't run it that way. It's kept small on purpose: a host on the ground with you and your group, walking the pits, not a coach tour behind a raised flag. Although we might use one to keep everyone together in a crowd that size, and at six foot five, I'm not exactly hard to find either.
What exactly happens when I reserve?
Two ways in. Pay in full today at $1,200 per guest and save $100, or hold your place with a $400 deposit and three automatic $300 payments on your saved card, the last by April 15, 2027 ($1,300 total). From there we build the full trip around your reservation. You deal with a real person, not a portal.
What does the deposit actually lock in?
Your place in the hosted group, which is kept small on purpose. We build the rest of the trip around your reservation from there. Nothing about your race day is left vague.
Do I have to come all three days?
No. The price is the same whether you join me for all three days or only some of them. Carb Day and Legends Day are where a lot of the guiding happens, so if you can make the whole weekend, it's worth it.
Will you sit with us during the race?
No. During the race you watch from your own seat. I'm your guide on Carb Day, Legends Day and race morning, you'll have my race-day guide in hand, and after the checkered flag I'm at the hotel to talk the race through with you.
Will my spouse or partner enjoy it if they're not a race fan?
Usually more than they expect. The 500 is as much a spectacle as a race: the pageantry, the anthem, the scale of the place, the story building lap by lap. Knowing what they're looking at is exactly what pulls in the person who came for the atmosphere rather than the horsepower. Plenty of reluctant plus-ones leave already asking about next year.
Come home with the one you'll never stop talking about.
Reserve your place at the 2027 Indy 500, and let me build the trip around it. From Carb Day through race morning, I'll show you where to be and what to watch for, so the biggest race in the world lands the way it should. The race comes once a year, I run one small group, and the best seats go with the earliest reservations.
Reserve My Place With the Host →Pay in full, or hold your place for $400 and three easy payments. One host. One small group. One race a year.
Still weighing it up? Before you commit the rest, we can talk. Ask me a question first, that's how I'd want to do it if it were my money.