The instant Simon Pagenaud felt the ice-cold bottle of milk hit his hand, he raised it high in the air and poured.
As the whole milk flowed over his bright red Firestone hat, Pagenaud lifted his head, allowing the quart to spill over his face. Mouth opened and eyes closed, he enjoyed a few drops as he emptied the bottle on himself. He couldn’t help it; he wanted to soak up every bit of this famous Indianapolis 500 tradition.
“You usually get to spray the champagne when you win a race, and Indy is the only place you get to drink milk,” Pagenaud told For The Win, reflecting back on his 2019 Indy 500 victory. “So I just sprayed the milk all over my face because I just wanted to embrace the moment.
“That’s really when I thought, OK, I’ve joined the club. I can enjoy this just like they did before, but I’m gonna go even further. I’m gonna pour it all over my face just to show how happy I was.”
But while the Indy 500 and its iconic venue, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, can elicit magical feelings, the bottle didn’t just appear in Pagenaud’s hand. It was delivered to him by one of the “milk people.”
Been dreaming of this moment my entire life – drinking milk at the #Indy500!!!! Incredible thank you @Team_Penske and @IMS!! Dreams do come true! pic.twitter.com/4BrpVl2Ogd
— Simon Pagenaud (@simonpagenaud) May 26, 2019
Editors note: Clicking this video will not replay the entire race. It begins with the post-race celebration.
Meet the milk man
When the Indy 500-winning driver’s car is ushered into Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Victory Lane, a myriad of people are there eagerly waiting. But, perhaps, the most important person is holding a bottle of ice-cold milk.
The Veteran Milk Person. Yes, that’s an official title.
For the 2022 Indy 500 on Sunday (12:30 p.m. ET, NBC), the Veteran Milk Man is Tim Haynes, a 62-year-old dairy farmer from Garrett, Indiana who runs his family-owned Superior Dairy. As the veteran, he’ll be charged with the all-important task of delivering the celebratory 32-ounce glass bottle to Sunday’s winning driver.
His most crucial responsibility?
“The thing they joke about, dare I say, is ‘Don’t drop the milk,’ ” Haynes said.
The American Dairy Association Indiana (ADAI) runs the show when it comes to the milk celebration, and their designated “milk people” are dairy farmers who make a three-year commitment to be part of Indy 500 history. After being the Rookie-elect for the first year, the chosen farmer becomes the Rookie Milk Person and inherits the duty of handing a bottle each to the winning team owner and chief mechanic. The following year, they become the Veteran Milk Person.
However, just because Haynes’ top responsibilities are at the end of the 500-mile race doesn’t mean he’ll have a casual and relaxing day. And after being the Rookie Milk Man for Hélio Castroneves’ 2021 Indy 500-winning squad, he knows what to expect.
He and the team of milk people will arrive at the track with the cooler around 6 a.m., surrounded by security — mostly to gain publicity around the milk, an ADAI spokesperson said. One year, the milk arrived in an armored car. Another time, the ADAI hired actors to play bodyguards for the cooler. This year, the milk and milk people will arrive with a police escort, where they’ll likely be greeted by fans wanting to take photos.
The milk people will then take the cooler to a secure location, and when the green flag flies, they’ll get a chance to watch the race. Or, at least, most of it.
“Usually about 15 laps before the end,” Haynes explained, “we head down to the presentation area where we wait for them to bring the winner. … It’s a maze of people. Everybody wants to be there.”
Before the Indy 500, the ADAI polls all the drivers for their milk preferences, should they win. They have three choices: whole milk, two-percent milk or fat-free milk. (Lactose-free milk is a secret fourth option, should any drivers request it.) The majority in recent milk polls requested whole.
So when the winner takes the checkered flag, the milk people consult the poll, see the winner’s preference and pull the correct type of milk from the cooler.
“The taste was amazing,” said Takuma Sato, the 2017 and 2020 Indy 500 champion. “It was the best milk I had ever! Of course. It was 2 percent, chilled and felt amazing.”
Nine decades in the making
Although the celebratory bottle of milk is the Indy 500’s most famous long-standing tradition, going back to the 1930s, it’s undeniably a peculiar one. If you’re grossed out by it, take it up with Louis Meyer.
“It’s one of those great Americana events and traditions that really came out of no real pomp and circumstance [or] from some sort of directive,” said Jason Vansickle, vice president of curation and education for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
Meyer was the first three-time Indy 500 champion, and he regularly drank buttermilk throughout his life, as his mother emphasized it when he was growing up. Though Meyer won the 1928 and 1933 Indy 500s, the first documented photo of him downing buttermilk after an Indy 500 win was in 1936, Vansickle explained.
The photo caught the attention of a milk industry executive, who vowed to have milk return to Victory Lane the following year. Little did that person know — with the exception of 1947 to 1955 — the tradition would continue for the next 87 years and counting.
However, every year the milk poll comes around, there are always a few drivers — this year, it’s Ed Carpenter and Felix Rosenqvist — who’d like to keep the milk tradition extra traditional and write in buttermilk, which isn’t an option.
“We just tried to educate them on the buttermilk,” Haynes said. “Buttermilk nowadays is totally different from buttermilk back when they drank it. Buttermilk nowadays is more for baking and stuff. If you ever drank it, it doesn’t taste very good.”
‘Magic’ milk
Ask just about any Indy 500 winner, and they’ll probably tell you how special the milk tradition is. But they’re not necessarily craving the bottle on what’s often a scorching Indiana day after racing at 200 miles an hour all afternoon.
“The milk thing is weird, I’m gonna be honest with you,” said Alexander Rossi, who won the 2016 Indy 500 as a rookie. “But so much of the 500 is about tradition, and it’s about the legacy of that race and what the people did before us. … I think just the sheer magnitude of the event is what’s kept all of these traditions alive for so many years.”
Even if drivers aren’t big fans of milk or dairy in general, Vansickle said they still appreciate the history behind the milk tradition. It’s akin to another Indy 500 accolade.
Several drivers said they treat their bottles like trophies and have them on display at their homes or offices, some next to their Baby Borgs — the miniature version of the Borg-Warner Trophy the drivers actually get to keep.
One driver, now-four-time Indy 500 winner Castroneves, amended the celebratory milk tradition slightly — and it stuck. After his first victory in 2001, Castroneves became the first driver to take some sips and then dump the bottle on his head, Vansickle said. Not every driver has done this since, he added, but certainly most of them.
“I didn’t know what to do anymore,” Castroneves said looking back. “I took the milk, I chugged it and I’m like, ‘Ahhh, I wanted this so bad and finally got it!’ And then I started pouring [it] down my head.”
Of course, the only issue with adding milk to an already sweaty fire suit is the subsequent smell — exacerbated by the drivers often keeping their suits on while they do media for several hours after the checkered flag.
Rossi said he felt “disgusting” after keeping his suit on for more than four hours after the race. Castroneves said the stench is also part of the tradition.
But Pagenaud and Sato, who called it “magic” milk, insist they didn’t smell.
“It was sweet, it was cold and it didn’t smell bad,” Pagenaud said. “The weirdest thing is it didn’t have a big effect on my suit. I didn’t smell bad after. I don’t know. They have special milk, I can tell you that.”
