2024 Indianapolis 500: Everything you need to know

SPEEDWAY, Indiana — The 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 is upon us. Yes, 108 times … and they didn’t run the event during the two World Wars … and the track opened two years before the first 500.

That’s old. Like, so long ago that when the first edition of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing took its inaugural green flag on May 30, 1911, a huge chunk of the 85,000 patrons in attendance arrived by way of horse-drawn vehicles, eager to see what the fuss was about with these newfangled automobiles. The winner was Ray Harroun, in his very yellow Marmon Wasp, a car that featured the first rearview mirror.

Told you it was old.

Harroun, the pride of Spartansburg, Pennsylvania, won that first race day by averaging 74.602 mph. This 108th race day, the field of 33 cars will be led to the green flag by Scott McLaughlin, the pride of Christchurch, New Zealand, who drove his also very yellow Chevy-powered Dallara to the pole position via a record four-lap average speed of 234.220 mph and will do so in front of 350,000 fans.

So, what do you need to know before Sunday at 12:45 p.m. ET when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway roars to life for the 108th time for this race? Grab some driving gloves, a helmet and a jug of milk and read ahead as we present four things you need to know for the 2024 Indy 500, one for each of the 2.5-mile rectangular racetrack’s 9-degree banked turns.

Turn 1: Cheater, cheater, pork tenderloin eater

Let’s start up front, where McLaughlin and his Team Penske teammates, 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power and defending race champ Josef Newgarden, swept the top three starting spots. (Yes, three, the field is broken down into 11 three-car rows. No other big league race does this.) Penske starting at the point isn’t exactly news — the team has won the pole a record 19 times — but it is only the second front-row sweep by one team, a feat first achieved by … yes, Penske, in 1988 with Rick Mears, Danny Sullivan and Al Unser.

But this season everything Penske does is being met with eye rolls and finger-pointing, because Newgarden and McLaughlin were stripped of their IndyCar season-opening win and third-place finishes,…