Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines for the 105th running of the Indianapolis 500! Each year, an Indiana dairy farmer hands out the most prized drink in all of sports, an ice-cold bottle of milk, to the winner of the Indy 500. This year, it’s Jill Houin from Homestead Dairy in Plymouth, Indiana.
Houin says this is an opportunity to share with the world the dairy story, and to express how hard dairy farmers work to put milk on the table.
“During this hard time of the pandemic, they didn’t stop working. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, working to get milk to the table and to the stores. And then they were working on donating coolers and milk products to food pantries during this time. So, I think just more and more people that understand how passionate and compassionate dairy farmers are for their community and for future generations, it’s just amazing to have the chance to share with so many people.”
Assisting Houin this year will be rookie Milk Person Tim Haynes from Superior Dairy in Garrett, Indiana.
The racecar drivers certainly love the tradition of guzzling milk after a big win. Josef Newgarden, driver of the #2 car from Team Penske, told HAT they appreciate the work of dairy farmers across the US.
“The dairy farmers absolutely work their butts off to try and produce the necessary milk that we all need in society to keep our lives moving forward and to provide nutritious milk that people drink every day or use every day in food. Obviously, for us, we’re very thankful to that group for honoring this tradition of the 500 and providing that tasty milk at the end of the race if you’re hopefully the lucky winner. So, thanks to all of the dairy farmers in the United States and certainly to American Dairy Association of Indiana. It’s just such a great tradition to be able to share with that group and all the work that they put in to supply that product for all the people around the United States.”
Newgarden and 20 other drivers chose whole milk as their preference if they find their way to Victory Lane. The rest of the 33-car field chose two percent.
Check out more with Houin, Haynes, Newgarden, and this year’s Fastest Rookie Pietro Fittipaldi in the video above.