The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Is Going Racing At Indianapolis

Later this week, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will play host to one of the most famous, historic and significant motorsport events on the annual calendar. That’s right, it’s almost time for the Wienie 500.

Yep, on 23 May, two days ahead of the actual big race at Indy, the Indianapolis 500, a pack of Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles – the giant driveable replica hot dog sausages and buns used to promote the American company’s range of processed meat products – are having their own race around the famous 2.5-mile oval. We’ve checked, and we’re not having some kind of weird cheese-induced dream.

Oscar Mayer currently has a fleet of six Wienermobiles, and all of them will take part in the race, dubbed the Wienie 500. Each will be decked out in a livery representing a specialty hot dog from six different regions of the US.

We don’t know who’s going to be driving the petrol-powered pork cylinders at this point, nor how long the race is going to last. We doubt it’s going to run to the same 200 laps as the main event – despite being powered by 300bhp 6.0-litre General Motors V8s, the Wieners are big old beasts, built on GMC truck chassis, and also have the unfortunate aero properties of a giant fibreglass hot dog, so it might go on a bit.

The company says that each driver will also wear custom hot dog-themed race suits, and that the victory will be invited into (sigh) Wiener's Circle to spray condiments rather than Champagne (or, as is Indy 500 tradition, milk).

The race is going to be live-streamed by the main US IndyCar broadcaster, Fox, on its IndyCar on Fox social channels at 2pm Eastern Time this Friday, 21 May – that’s 7pm UK time, should you want to settle down and enjoy this historic event in the annals of motorsport history.