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Ryan McGee
Multiple Authors
“WIENIES! START YOUR ENGINES!”
In 1905, Indianapolis businessman Carl Fisher first conjured up the idea that would become Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a show palace of speed designed to test the boundaries of what is possible, both on the road and in our imaginations.
The first event held at the 2.5-mile rectangular racetrack was a balloon race. Since that day in 1909, the Racing Capital of the World has hosted nearly every racing machine imaginable, from Formula 1 and NASCAR to MotoGP, sprint cars and airplane races.
Its signature event, of course, is the Indianapolis 500, which will take the green flag for its 110th edition on Sunday. But first, there will be Friday. Traditionally known as Carburetion Day. However, before the final practice session for the Greatest Spectacle in Racing will come the second running of what has become the Greatest Viral Sensation in Racing.
The Oscar Mayer Wienie 500.
A six-pack of 27-foot-long (or, per the official press release, 60-hot-dog-long) fiberglass franks, each powered by Chevy V8 Vortec engines, topping out at a mustard spicy 60 mph, each hoping to catch the aerodognamic slipstream and be the first to slide over the fabled yard of bricks at the end of two red-hot laps.
Slaw Dog, representing the Southeastern United States, is the defending champion, the wienie that edged its way past Chi Dog (Midwest) by inches one year ago, earning the right to roll into the Wieners Circle and receive not the Borg-Warner Trophy but, yes, the Borg-Wiener Trophy. This after then-leader Sonoran Dog (Southwest) lost the lead with half of a lap remaining, when its engine overheated and spewed steam down the fabled Indy backstretch, or as Fox play-by-play announcer Will Buxton described it, “smoked buns.” The taste in the mouth has become even worse for Sonoran, who has been relegated after a fan vote, replaced this year by Corn Dog. Returning to round out the field are New York Dog (East) and Seattle Dog (Northwest), who, via a chef’s kiss Oscar Mayer press release, will compete in “a high-stakes race around the Brickyard to see who cuts the mustard … teams are hungrier than ever and ready to show off their well-cooked strategy to make it to the Wieners Circle.”
When asked to reflect on his call of the inaugural event one year ago, Indianapolis Motor Speedway public address announcer Allen Bestwick takes pause. “I will have to chew on that thought for a moment. It was a challenge to capture the right flavor.”
His is a name and voice that race fans know as a play-by-play broadcaster for NBC, ESPN, TNT and the Motor Racing Network. But despite all that he has witnessed in a Hall of Fame career, he was not ready for this and what it would become. No one was.
“I’ve been asked more about it over the last 12 months — almost as much as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Daytona race [2001, the first race at Daytona after the death of Earnhardt’s father],” Bestwick says. “So, it must’ve hit the spot for people.”
Oh, it did. In the 8 minutes and 20 seconds that it took for the frankfurters to fight their way through 40 furlongs, an event that was green flagged as a cute marketing idea for the Carb Day fans flashed under the checkered flag as social media’s No. 1 trending topic. Not in Indiana. Not in the food industry. On Earth.
“I was in shock, honestly. It was a surreal career moment,” says Kelsey Rice, Oscar Mayer’s brand communications director. She says the idea was cooked up only four months before it happened, resulting in a summoning of the six Wienermobiles that are constantly on the road throughout the nation, wheeled by two-person teams of Hotdoggers. “We knew that it had the capacity to travel far and wide, so the fact that we saw it unfold was just remarkable. I was in shock. It is still one of my favorite memories, just scrolling online, seeing how well this thing traveled and how well it was received. To be secure, the No. 1 spot on X immediately following the race is unreal. Everyone tries so hard to do that, and then when it happens, it’s like a shock.”
That shock extended to every corner of the 560-acre grounds of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The media center, which can be a very cynical place, had its windowed walls lined with stunned sportswriters, who violated the sacred “no cheering in the press box” mandate when Slaw Dog reenacted Al Unser Jr. whipping by Scott Goodyear in 1992, or Sam Hornish Jr. stunning Marco Andretti in ’06. Gasoline Alley itself, where teams were thrashing through final preparations for Sunday’s Indy 500, came to a standstill as crews crowded around their garage televisions and some even ran out into the pits to witness the finish with their own eyes.
“The reality of it all set in on us very quickly,” confesses Townsend Bell, who sits alongside Buxton and fellow former IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe in the Fox broadcast booth. Bell and “Hinch” made a combined 19 starts in the Indy 500, but never had they seen anything like the Wienie 500. “We’re so busy doing Indy 500 prep and Carb Day, which is still a serious day on the racetrack with a two-hour final practice. You have the pit stop competition. There’s a lot going on, the Wienie 500 was just sort of this little add-on thing, they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re doing this Wienie 500. It’s like a promo.’ Then, all the sudden, we roll out there for it, and we all looked at each other like, ‘Oh my god, the fans are into this, this is like a big deal.'”
Bell says the moment he realized that something special might be happening was during the singing of the prerace anthem, as Bestwick asked fans to stand, remove their hats and place their hands over their stomachs for an operatic Jim Nabors-inspired “Back Home Again in Indiana”-ish crooning of “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener …” that echoed off the fabled grandstands and bricks of Speedway, Indiana.
“Without even discussing it, we just decided to take it dead serious,” Bell says of the moment. “With plenty of innuendo, of course.”
So much innuendo.
“I understand there was a bit of a shoving match at the drivers’ meeting as the Hotdoggers were debating the hotness of their buns, respectively…”
“Can the field ketchup to the leader? It’s really a dog-eat-dog race out there right now.”
“You gotta think that the riding mechanic is deep in the casing of that wiener right now and trying to figure out, is it fixable?”
“When you’re talking about wieners that big, the draft is so powerful at those speeds.”
“All of that was just off the cuff and I have to tell you …” Bell says, with a pause and a sigh. “As a broadcaster, nothing has ever felt more like the danger zone than the Wienie 500. There’s a line, you just don’t know where it is. So, it’s a dangerous game.”
In defense of Bestwick, Bell and their microphoned comrades, puns have been a staple of the Wienermobile experience since the first vehicle was unveiled by Carl Mayer himself in 1936. Every press release and every conversation with Rice and her Chicago-based team is served up piled high with bun puns.
“It was invented during the Great Depression with really one simple mission in mind, which was to spark smiles when Americans needed it most,” says Rice. “These six, we like to say they crisscross the hot dog highways, so it’s special to have them all together. Even if we do have to replace one each year because it failed to cut the mustard.”
It’s an assemblage that can be viewed in real time. The Wienermobile website has a Wienermobile Tracker that shows where all six vehicles are. Normally they are spread all over the map, like condiments wiped on a napkin. This week they are in the same place right smack in the middle of the USA.
“We never get to see each other,” Hotdogger Sarahkraut squealed one year ago as she hugged her competitors postrace. “We all truly relish this opportunity!”
This year’s new entry, Corn Dog, will feature a telltale tail in the form of a long handle sticking out the back, reminiscent of Ray Harroun’s tapered-tail Marmon Wasp that won the inaugural Indy 500 in 1911.
Every Hotdogger, like Miss Kraut, comes with a punny nickname, like Chi Dog’s Bun-Length Ben, New York Dog’s Jack & Cheese, and Chili Dog co-pilot Zoewienie. All are new to their jobs and new to the race, so driving coaches have been recruited from the Indy 500 starting grid, including Sting Ray Robb. And that’s no nickname. His parents named him that.
Bell says that Fox is also pulling every toy out of its concession stand. Last year’s race aired only on YouTube. This time around, it will air on network television. The perfect warmed-up snack as the network and the racetrack warm up for Sunday.
So, if like Bell & Co., you find yourself dropping wiener puns all weekend, there’s no shame in it. And don’t be surprised if you find yourself standing over a grill. Rice says that there will be about 30,000 hot dogs consumed at Indianapolis Motor Speedway over Memorial Day weekend. She also says that thanks to the bun-to-bun throwdown between the Wienermobiles she lovingly refers to as their “really meat fleet,” that Oscar Mayer sold nearly half a million more wieners nationally than over the same weekend one year earlier.
“I’ll tell you this, and this is coming from a race car driver, sponsorship, this stuff works,” says Bell. “I remember leaving the track that day, and we’d been out in the sun and it’s been a long day, and you’re heading home, I was like, ‘Man, I haven’t had a hot dog for a while. I could really go for a hot dog right now.’ Because …”
Go on and say it, Townsend.
“Sun’s out, bun’s out.”
