Overview
- Sunday reporting of drivers' pre-race milk selections shows a clear majority chose whole milk, seven drivers chose 2% and Romain Grosjean was the only driver to pick skim.
- The choice list is used so organizers can stage personalized glass bottles for Victory Lane and hand them to the winning driver, the chief mechanic and the team owner.
- The Victory Lane milk ritual began when Louis Meyer drank buttermilk after his 1936 win and an Indiana dairy executive then ensured milk was offered to winners in later years.
- Today the American Dairy Association of Indiana helps run the ceremony by sending two Indiana dairy farmers to present the bottles, a practice that links the race to local dairy promotion.
- While the custom is durable there have been rare departures, most famously Emerson Fittipaldi's 1993 orange juice choice, and continued media attention keeps the ritual visible beyond sport pageantry.