Indianapolis 500 Drivers Join Students on "Community Day"

The last time Tony Kanaan figured he had seen this many children was on a visit to Disneyland. This wasn't quite a summertime theme park, but for an hour in a field a few miles north of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, an awful lot of children were smiling in conjunction with drivers from the starting field of the 99th Indianapolis 500. "Community Day" this year for the Verizon IndyCar Series drivers meant going into the community - or more specifically, joining more than 9,000 Indianapolis Public School students for "Field Day" at Indianapolis' Fitness Farm. "It's fun, just the whole event," said Kanaan after jumping off a stationary bicycle where he competed in a pedaling contest with students. "It's a great idea to get out of the Speedway; we're confined there for a month." As usual, drivers signed their fair share of autographs and posed for pictures, but this Community Day offered the chance to participate alongside kids in field day-type events. Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Charlie Kimball and AJ Foyt Racing's Takuma Sato participated in the bicycling area, while on a tennis court a few students traded shots with Townsend Bell of Dreyer & Reinbold-Kingdom Racing, Helio Castroneves from Team Penske, Carlos Huertas of Dale Coyne Racing and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports' James Jakes. The groupings of drivers and sports made for some fun combinations, like Andretti Autosport's Justin Wilson at a gymnastics area - "my kids can do it but I can't," he said - but everyone appeared to enjoy the various stations, which also included soccer, football, golf, volleyball and more.

Contact:

Mike Kitchel

mkitchel@indycar.com

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