Milk may not be the first beverage you’d grab after exercising for hours outside, but it’s the only thing the Indianapolis 500 winner wants to down. And, so the victors say, it’s the best milk ever.
A tradition that dates back almost 100 years, the Indy 500 winner always celebrates with a big bottle of chilled milk. American Dairy Association Indiana provides the milk to the Indy 500 winner, who typically takes a few sips, poses for some quick photos and then dumps the milk everywhere in celebration.
But there’s obviously more than one kind of milk, so how does the American Dairy Association Indiana know what the winning driver wants? It polls them ahead of each Indy 500.
And the choices are simple: whole, 2 percent or skim. Although, sometimes drivers write in chocolate, strawberry or buttermilk — the variety that started the tradition.
Whole milk is typically the majority’s preference, including last year when 28 drivers requested it. This year, it’s still the clear favorite but just for 25 drivers, while seven requested 2 percent and Romain Grosjean was the lone vote for skim.
Here are the results from the American Dairy Association Indiana’s milk poll for the 2026 Indy 500 drivers.
(Courtesy of American Dairy Association Indiana)
Drivers are listed alphabetically:
- Jacob Abel: whole milk
- Marcus Armstrong: whole
- Ed Carpenter: whole
- Hélio Castroneves: 2 percent
- Caio Collet: whole
- Conor Daly: whole
- Scott Dixon: whole
- Marcus Ericsson: whole
- Santino Ferrucci: whole
- Louis Foster: whole
- Romain Grosjean: skim
- Dennis Hauger: whole
- Jack Harvey: whole
- Ryan Hunter-Reay: 2 percent
- Kyle Kirkwood: whole
- Katherine Legge: whole
- Christian Lundgaard: 2 percent
- David Malukas: whole
- Scott McLaughin: whole
- Josef Newgarden: whole
- Pato O’Ward: 2 percent
- Alex Palou: whole
- Will Power: whole
- Graham Rahal: 2 percent
- Christian Rasmussen: whole
- Sting Ray Robb: whole
- Alexander Rossi: whole
- Felix Rosenqvist: whole
- Takuma Sato: 2 percent
- Mick Schumacher: whole
- Nolan Siegel: 2 percent
- Kyffin Simpson: whole
- Rinus VeeKay: whole
So How Did The Indy 500 Milk Tradition Start?
The history of this celebratory moment goes all the way back to the 1936 Indy 500. Louis Meyer won his third Indy 500 that year, and as a fan of buttermilk, he quenched his post-race thirst with a bottle of it.
As Indianapolis Motor Speedway noted, a dairy industry executive saw news footage of Meyer drinking buttermilk after the race and “enthusiastically requested milk be made available to the winner of each Indianapolis 500 thereafter.” While not every winner drank milk every year immediately after Meyer’s iconic moment, celebrating an Indy 500 victory with milk returned for good in 1956 and has been an annual tradition ever since.
How To Watch The 2026 Indy 500
The 2026 Indy 500 is set for Sunday at 12:30 p.m. ET on FOX. Pre-race coverage will begin on FOX at 10 a.m. ET. Both the race and pre-race show will be available to stream on FOX One.
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