Joe Hale, who oversaw the historic renovation and redesign of the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, can take pride in a job well done after the facility reopened on April 2 on time and below budget.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum announced on Friday, April 25 that Hale will step down as President effective June 20, 2025, after completing a successful five-year reign.
Hale became the president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in January 2021. Recognized for his expertise in fundraising and managing capital campaigns, Hale guided the Museum through its successful inaugural $69 million capital campaign and oversaw the completion of a massive renovation that came in under budget and on schedule – its first major renovation in 40 years.
“It’s been five years since I was originally contacted about this amazing opportunity, and we’ve accomplished the objectives I was given,” said Hale. “I want to sincerely thank the Museum’s Board of Directors for providing me with the chance to be part of this transformative experience.
“I will miss my regular interaction with our many members, donors, the racing community, and especially my very talented colleagues on the staff. The timing is right for new leadership to guide the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum as it enters this new era, and I look forward to watching my colleagues build on its current success.”
Under Hale’s leadership, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum garnered community support and attracted thousands of new donors, fully funding the museum’s renovation. The museum reopened to the public on April 2 and welcomed a record number of visitors in its first few weeks. The reimagined space engages new audiences and serves as the home to new educational programs.
Hale also played a key role in establishing a $100 million endowment that will ensure the Museum’s sustainability for years to come.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum Board of Directors Names Interim President
Kirk Hendrix, a current board member, has been named interim President by the Board of Directors. Hendrix retired as President and CEO of AAA Hoosier Motor Club in July 2023 after leading the organization for 10 years. Before that, Hendrix served in the same role with the 500 Festival in Indianapolis.
“On behalf of the Board and the entire Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum community, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Joe for his visionary leadership and unwavering dedication to preserving the legacy of this iconic institution. Under his guidance, the Museum has become not just a repository of racing history, but a vibrant celebration of the spirit of the Indianapolis 500,” said Chuck Jones, Board Chairman of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. “As Joe embarks on his next chapter, I also want to thank Kirk for assuming the role as interim President and ensuring continuity and a smooth transition.”
The Board has begun a comprehensive nationwide search for a permanent replacement.
The Back Story To Hale’s Successful Renovation Of The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Hale was a highly successful fundraiser when he was contacted by Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles about the position about five years ago.
The goal was to completely renovate and reimagine the Museum so that it would remain relevant well into the future.
In 2021, Hale and his staff toured and studied other museums.
He went to the Kentucky Derby Museum in Louisville, the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan, The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan and the Air Force Museum to see how they were telling their stories.
Hale and his staff started planning, and ultimately, the project became a little bit bigger than just the museum because they needed to renovate the museum building.
“We knew that the HVAC needed to be replaced, the windows, the fire suppression. So, we knew it was going to be an extensive renovation,” Hale recalled. “Another challenge we got from our landlord is, see if you can maybe double the size of the museum without going outside the footprint? So that was a challenge that I love taking on to see how we could do that.
“The way we doubled the museum space without going up or outside the footprint was when our contractor got in there and said there’s a lot of space above this drop ceiling.
“It turned out that we could put a mezzanine in the museum and add another 6,000 plus square feet display space there.
“But then at the same time, we also needed a place to store about 150 cars. We started planning a restoration shop that we’d hold about 150 cars, have a six -bay restoration, two -bay detailing area, some event space, lobby, little gift shop. And so that became part of the project. And we said, well, you know, if we build a museum, we’re going to want to do bigger and better exhibitions.
“So, then we wanted to put another $10 million into our endowment. Our project became an $89 million project, which we kicked off in July 2023.”
Hale’s plans were ambitious and ambition cost money.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is not owned by Roger Penske, the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and it was never owned by the Hulman-George Family.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is actually a 501c3 Not for Profit corporation. It relies on fundraising and donations to become sustainable.
Because of that, it led Hale to the basement – a famed area of the Museum that few people have ever seen, and nobody is allowed to photograph because it includes some of the most priceless artifacts in racing history.
“The basement was off limits to everybody for so long,” Hale admitted. “And about four years ago, we created an exhibition around the basement. We called it ‘The Basement Collection’ and we needed to raise some money to pay for the feasibility study and pay for the planning of this new museum.
“So, what we did, we re-lit it, and we painted it. We didn’t do a lot of work beyond that, but we put some of our many of our cool cars were down there, obviously. People couldn’t see them because we didn’t allow anybody in the basement for some reason.
“So, we said, ‘we’ll allow six people to go down at a time, and it must be led by a member of our staff. You can stay for 30 minutes. Absolutely no photographs are allowed.’
“Lo and behold it helped us raise about $400,000 in the next couple of years that helped pay for the planning of the new museum.”
There is a good reason why photographs aren’t allowed in the basement, according to Hale.
“Because it created even more of a draw from the public, the curiosity,” Hale explained. “They hadn’t been allowed down there.
“And we thought, ‘Well, if everybody’s going to start posting pictures of it in social media, there’s not going to be that desire to go down there and see what’s down there yourself.’ So, we made that decision, whether that was right or not, but it sure helped us make some money.
“And now the basement, the lower level, is all going to be part of the museum. So, there will be some additional winning cars from our collection. There will be a featured car gallery down there.”
The money raised from creating the basement tours helped the museum fund many important aspects of the renovation.
“We started the planning in earnest we did a feasibility study,” Hale said. “It was not just how much money we can raise but what’s it feasible for this actual this structure to support. What’s the new business plan going forward what’s the staffing level going to have to be.
“We did all that and as I said then we kicked it all off in July 2023.”
Why The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum Is Important To The History Of Racing And The State of Indiana
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is much about the future as it is the past. The future of the automotive industry was why the Speedway was built in the first place back in 1909.
But so much of it is tied to the past, the history and the traditions.
The Museum has successful balanced the history of the Indianapolis 500 with a bold look at its future.
“Our focus is on telling the stories of what’s happened at the track,” Hale said. “Now, you’ve got Purdue University doing the electric vehicle program that they’ve got going. We don’t have too much planned about trying to predict the future, but once you see it, you’re going to agree that we’ve done a really good job of telling the stories of the past and the present.
“Every year, on race day, we get many new stories to tell, and I think that’s what we really excel at. And like I said, that and, you know, this education program, we’ve got a new education director who started on July 1, a dynamic young man who I think is going to do a wonderful job. But with so many people coming from outside of Indiana, our goal is to really mobilize the local population and get them more involved in the museum.
“That’s going to be one of our objectives.”
The museum is evidence the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is not just a sporting venue; it is a true part of the fabric of the state of Indiana, a true part of the fabric of America.
That is a tremendous story to tell and a heavy responsibility.
“I think it’s very important,” Hale said. “The Indianapolis 500, the museum, the whole complex, it’s such an economic development driver for the state of Indiana as well.
“I don’t care where you are in the world, if you write down that you’re from Indianapolis, most people are going to think of the 500 before they think of anything else if they know where Indiana is.
“I just think it’s very important for us to, as I said, maintain those stories so that, we can preserve the past and at the same time try to take a glimpse at the future.
“What racing might look like, 10, 20, 50 years from now. Nobody knows for sure. But we’ve talked to a few people about, would that be an exhibition idea, where you could get some smart people working in the industry to make some predictions about what it’s going to look like.”
The importance of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway includes the future of racing and the automotive industry and preserving its rich history and tradition of a sporting spectacle that dates to May 30, 1911, when Ray Harroun won the first Indianapolis 500.
Under Hale’s leadership, he started a dramatic renovation project that will take the old museum out of its sleepy past and replace it with a new museum that will honor the past with interactive displays while still featuring some of the priceless remnants and relics that have made the Indianapolis Motor Speedway one of the most famous institutions in the world.
The concept of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum dates to Tony Hulman’s ownership of the facility in November 1945.
The original museum opened at the corner of 16th and Georgetown on April 7, 1956, in a building was designed by C. Wilbur Foster and Associates. It also housed the ticket office and was next to the main gate.
It was very small and featured just a few displays and six cars, but the centerpiece was Ray Harroun’s 1911 Indianapolis 500 car, the famed Marmon Wasp. Karl Kizer was the first curator, but the popularity of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum led dozens of car collectors to donate former winning cars and other artifacts, to the museum and it quickly outgrew its space.
According to the late Indianapolis Motor Speedway publicist Al Bloemker, by 1961, the museum was seeing an average of 5,000 visitors per week (not including month of May crowds), former driver Freddy Agabashian said in an interview at the time.
In 1975, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway broke ground on a new 96,000-square-foot museum and administration building inside the track’s infield. In addition to the museum, the two-story building housed the Speedway’s administrative offices, ticket office, a gift shop, and photography department.
The expanded museum opened to the public on April 5, 1976, coinciding with the year-long United States Bicentennial celebration and nearly 20 years to the day the original museum opened.
The original museum building outside turn one was converted into additional office space.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987, with a plaque on display outside of the Museum.
It was a palace at the time it opened in 1975 and remained one of the greatest museums to commemorate auto racing through the following decades.
Despite its impressive collection and history, however, over time it fell a few laps down to other modern museums that had kept up with the technology of the times.
“The museum was a little tired,” Hale said. “It really hadn’t changed in nearly 50 years now. And so, three years ago, we started looking around.
“We kept getting slammed as being an indoor parking lot. You would come in, and all the cars were in front of you, and there was very little storytelling that was kind of integrated into the museum.
“So, we thought, let’s plan this so that it not just appeals to the folks that love the cars and love the history. When you think about it, that’s really our mission to preserve and tell the stories of the 500.”
Joe Hale accomplished that mission, and a month after the 109thIndianapolis 500 is held on May 25, 2025, he will move on, leaving an impressive legacy that is on full display at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
