The Indy 500: in pictures

Seeing as Hot Wheels are attempting this preposterous truck-jumping record-breaking attempt at the Indianapolis 500 this weekend, we thought we'd look back on other records created at the race which hits its hundredth birthday on Sunday.
 
Click on for eleven landmark moments from the 500-mile competition's history - which can also claim to be the most popular sporting spectator event in the world. But we haven't got a picture of that one.  
   

1910s: 26 of the 40-strong field were still running when the checkered flag dropped at the inaugural race in 1911. The record's not yet been broken. 

1920s: This isn't a Frenchman called Gaston Chevrolet whose brother, Louis, founded Chevrolet. It's Joe Boyer, who finished 12th during the 1920 race. But Gaston, despite our failure to find his picture, was the only non-American-born driver to win an Indy 500 race that decade. 

1930s: The most laps led by the winner in an Indy 500 was 198, driven Billy Arnold in 1930.  

1940s: After its four-year wartime hiatus, the Indy restarted in 1946 and was won by British-born George Robson, which was trumpeted during the first ever radio broadcast of the event.
   

1950s: Say hello to AJ Foyt. This is 1958, and the first race of his record-breaking run of consecutive Indianapolis 500 starts, which totaled 34 in 1992.

1960s: After a colossal crash in 1966, only seven cars crossed the finish line - the lowest number ever.

1970s: In 1977, Janet Guthrie became the first ever female to qualify for the Indy 500. 

1980s: In 1989 the winner's share of the Indy 500's prize money toppled over the $1 million mark. And it was Emerson Fittipaldi who bagged the lot.   

The fastest lap ever recorded was 38.119 seconds, driven by Quaker State's Eddie Cheever Jr on his 78th lap of the 1996 race. He reached a top speed of a faintly preposterous 236.10mph. 

2000s: Danica Patrick finished fifth in the 2005 race, the highest place by any female driver.  

2010s: After Dario Franchitti's win last year, his team's owner, Chip Ganassi, became the first car owner ever to win the Indianapolis 500, NASCAR Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400.