INDIANAPOLIS — 2020 has been a weird year so far. From a global pandemic that gripped us with fear, to murder hornets, to earthquakes, to fires, to hurricanes to racial injustice to basically everything in between that has led to the world going astray.

What’s made all of these things even bigger is, the distraction that we used to love being gone. That distraction is sports.

2020 has shown just how much that we need the sporting world to distract us from our “real world” problems at hand.

Luckily, some things are starting to come back, albeit not in anyway shape or form like it was before. Collegiate and high school sports are in peril. Baseball is being played without fans. The NBA is in a bubble in Orlando.

But, one sport that at least closely resembles its past is racing. If you’re searching for a much needed distraction this weekend, give the NTT IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500 (1 p.m. ET, NBC, INDYCAR Radio Network) a try.

While no fans will be at the race, and that is a big deal, the racing itself won’t be any different. Racing is the only sport that you can watch and not have the need for a crowd to be there. I mean, watching stick and ball sports, you need that crowd noise. That level of excitement at every pitch, every made shot, every defensive stop, well it’s awkward without it.

For racing, once the cars get going, you honestly don’t even notice the lack of fans. The natural noise of the cars drowns that out.

So, for the why you should watch factor?

Well, first off it’s to witness history. This is the 104th time that this race has taken place. I don’t know about you, but you’ll be hard pressed to come up with a list of something that’s been around more 104 years. Something relevant for 104 years. Something that means so much that it will make grown men cry of joy.

33 drivers will take to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon to race for racing supremacy. The winner takes home over $1 million.

The race will start with 11 Rows of 3 and the first driver to cross the yard of bricks on Lap 200, will receive a nice cold glass of milk and a victory wreath as part of their elation. More on this in a moment.

Speaking of size of this place, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is one of the oldest and largest sporting venues in the world. Just think about it, here’s what you can fit inside the track comfortably – Yankee Stadium, the Rose Bowl, Churchill Downs, Roman Coliseum, Vatican City, The White House, Taj Mahal and Liberty Island. The grounds span an eye opening 933 acres.

Well, what if I told you that these cars go around that place wheel-to-wheel in 38-39 seconds. Yes, they’re making it 2.5-miles in length in less than 40 seconds. That’s traveling the length of a football field in less than second. For qualifying, they turn four laps, which equates out to 10 miles. The pole winner this year, Marco Andretti, completed his four qualifying laps (10 miles) on Sunday from start to finish in just 2-minutes and 35-seconds. These guys were going 238-240 mph into a turn and not even lifting off the gas.

That’s why that narrative that some people think that being a race car driver is easy is false. They just sit and drive for 3 hours right? NO! Imagine driving your car in the middle of January on an icy day down your local interstate. Now, imagine doing so at 230 mph.

That’s how out of control these cars really are. We can barely do 20 mph in the ice. These guys are going over 200 mph faster than that and doing so for 500 miles.

The more loose, or free flowing the car feels, the faster. Now, imagine doing so without power steering. Yes, these cars don’t have power steering either. Now, imagine turning your car into a corner on ice at speeds in excess of 230 mph without power steering and having more g-forces on your body than an astronaut going into orbit.

After all, that’s kind of what an IndyCar is. It’s a plane upside down. These cars have so much downforce on them that with the speeds that they’re traveling, they could drive upside down in a room and stick to the ceiling.

These drivers pull between 3-5 g-forces per turn on each lap because of that. The rollercoaster that you’re all a fan of? That pressure that you feel on your head and body on them, those are g-forces. An IndyCar driver literally doubles that feel when they turn the steering wheel in these long sweeping corners. Can you imagine doing that at 230+ mph without power steering?

There’s four turns and 200 laps. That’s 12 g-forces on your body per lap. Multiply that by 200 and you get 2,400 pounds of force on your body during the race. Then do that without power steering. Due to having no power steering and the forces on their bodies, drivers say the steering wheel will weight around 35-45 pounds PER TURN.

Does that sound like fun?

On a warm day, they will lose between 5-15 pounds of water weight from that stress.

So, some may wonder, why do they race for 500 miles and end up where they started 3 hours later? Well, that’s the vision of 1911!

Track founder Carl Fisher wanted the race to last seven hours in length because back then, he wanted to give fans something to watch from mid morning into the afternoon. So, he thought with the cars traveling around 75 mph, how many miles could you go to fit seven hours?

500!

Ray Harroun did it in 6-hours, 42-minutes and eight seconds in 1911.

They’ll do it this year in about three hours.

Simon Pagenaud will look to become just the third repeat winner of this race since 1956. Pagenaud, won from the pole last year and became the first French born driver to do that in literally a century. Here’s a fun fact about the last. Jules Goux won this race in 1913, but he’s more famous for what he did during that race…drinking and driving. Yes, Goux raced decades before milk was brought for the Speedway, his drink of choice? Champagne. Except, he CHUGGED champagne during every pit stop. It worked because he won the race in 1913 doing so. In 1914, drinking while driving in the race was outlawed.

Can you imagine doing that now?

You may wonder why they’re doing milk now too. I mean, I don’t blame you. Can you imagine getting out of a hot vehicle after three grueling hours in it and the first thing you drink is…milk?

That’s why people wonder why the ‘500 winners drink that following the race. But, it all got started when Louis Meyer drank buttermilk to refresh himself on a hot race day in 1936. An executive with what was then the Milk Foundation was so elated when he saw the moment captured in a photograph in the sports section of his newspaper the following morning that he vowed to make sure it would be repeated in coming years. There was a period between 1947-55 when milk was apparently no longer offered, but the practice was revived in 1956 and has been a tradition ever since.

So we have one of the oldest and biggest sporting venues, hosting race cars that serve as an upside down airplane, that travel around this venue at speeds in excess of 230 mph and can do so by traveling 2.5-miles in less than 40 seconds, while pulling the amount of force on their bodies as an astronaut, but doing so without power steering, to chase $1 million and a glass of milk.

Those are good reasons to watch.

So is this, the racing is incredible. It’s not like this is a high speed parade. It’s danger, speed and calculated risks. At times, these drivers will go 3 and 4 wide trying to pass one another knowing that at any moment they could touch and spark a melee.

That should lead to yet again another fantastic finish. I mean, we all love screaming at the TV for the Kentucky Derby. The “Fastest 2 Minutes In Sports” right? Well, wait until  you see all these cars flying at speeds over 230 mph battling out for the win in the end. It will get your heart pumping and palms sweating even if you have no dog in this fight.

Four of the last six races have seen the margin of victory of less than a second. Think about that. 500 miles of racing later, the top two cars cross the yard of bricks less than a second apart. Two of the top four closest finishes in Indy 500 history have occurred since 2014.

Since 1998, just six times has the finish been less than a second from first to second. Four of those have been since 2014.

Also, 10 straight years we’ve seen the final pass for the lead happen within the final 10 laps of the race. That only happened just nine times between 1969 and 2009.

Since 2011, the final pass for the win occurred within six laps to go. Does that happen again?

Find out on Sunday on NBC.