Brabham was a Formula One man - ultimately a three-time world champion and knight of the realm - and was seen as a revolutionary when he took an F1-style car to Indianapolis, although he didn't win the Indy 500.

No Australian has, but that may change early next Monday, Australian time.

Two Aussies are among the field of 33 for the 94th running of what the Hoosiers - the people of Indiana - call the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

Toowoomba's Will Power will start second, Sydney's Ryan Briscoe fourth.

They are driving for Roger Penske, a billionaire who loves and lives for motor racing and who has won this race as a team owner a record 15 times.

Penske has one other driver in the field - Brazilian Helio Castroneves, who has already won three Indianapolis 500s - 2001, 2002 and last year.

In qualifying last weekend at the four kilometre speedway known as The Brickyard - because in its early days the track was paved with 3.2 million bricks - Castroneves turned the required four successive laps at an average of almost 228 miles an hour - or 366.87kmh!

Power averaged 227.578mph and Briscoe 226.554mph.

These are almost jet speeds, on tarmac, with another 32 competitors around you on race day - and with unforgiving walls just centimetres away.

As the legendary A.J. Foyt once told an Indianapolis rookie driver, "Don't turn right or you'll be eating concrete."

The slowest qualifier this year is 19-year-old Colombian Sebastian Saavedra at 223.634mph - just 1.9 per cent slower than Castroneves.

A record four women have qualified, although the best of them at this oval caper - although The Brickyard is more a rectangle with four turns, each slightly different - Danica Patrick is 23rd, behind two others and very unhappy with her car prepared by the fabled Andretti clan.

Castroneves could become the first foreigner to win the classic four times, equaling the record of Americans Foyt, Al Unser Senior and Rick Mears.

Whether it be Castroneves, Power, Briscoe, another driver from outside the US or one home-grown who takes the chequered flag first this Memorial Day, the Indy 500 is something very different to what it was - the great American race for American race drivers.

Thirty years ago all but one of the 33 starters was American. This year only nine - barely a quarter of the field - are.

Twelve nations are represented now, which largely explains the slide in Indy racing's popularity in the patriotic US while NASCAR stock car racing - very much for good ol' boys with a few ring-ins, including Australian Marcos Ambrose and Colombia's F1 refugee Juan Pablo Montoya - has massively outstripped it.

Still, the Indy 500 has a tradition, a mystique and a magic that NASCAR's biggest races - the Daytona 500 in Florida and next Monday's Coca-Cola 600 at night in Charlotte, North Carolina - haven't yet matched.

Sports Illustrated columnist Bruce Martin says of Indy's place in the American sporting landscape: "In its way it is as important as the World Series, the Superbowl, the Stanley Cup and the Kentucky Derby."

Like Mark Webber, who will be chasing a third straight F1 grand prix victory in Turkey on Sunday night, Power and Briscoe raced in Europe, but didn't make it to the F1 grid.

Briscoe went very close - he was Toyota's third driver on the GP tracks when that was allowed in Friday practice sessions.

American racing was a consolation prize for the pair, but they have both had massive crashes there that have broken many bones and taken months of rehabilitation.

To drive for Penske, a brilliant man manager known as "The Captain", is as good as it gets in Indy racing.

The only other team that can offer anywhere near the same opportunity for success is that of Chip Ganassi - and his two drivers, Scotsman Dario Franchitti, married to actress Ashley Judd, and Brisbane-born New Zealander Scott Dixon, will start third and sixth on Monday. Both are already Indy 500 winners with Ganassi, but Briscoe's stay with Ganassi was short-lived.

The field will form up in 11 rows of three and it is a rolling - or flying - start rather than accelerating from scratch off the grid.

Unlike F1 and Australia's V8 Supercars, and although the Penske and Ganassi cars are favourites, this is a race that can be won from any starting position.

It's 500 miles, or 800km. There will be crashes, some of them huge.

It's frightening for the drivers - Castroneves says he "saw Jesus" three times on his qualifying run and Franchitti had that experience "many times".

Power, fifth last year in his Indy 500 debut, calls The Brickyard "nerve-wracking".

He has overshadowed the more experienced Briscoe since joining Team Penske this season, leading the series after winning the first two races - but they were on street and road courses.

Briscoe was annoyed not to have made it an all-Penske front row at Indianapolis, but is confident he has the right set-up for the race.

All the Indy cars now are Italian-made Dallaras with engines from Japanese manufacturer Honda - again going against the grain of Americanism.

Revolutionary technical changes have been mooted, but for now the organisers are concerned to contain costs in the wake of the global financial crisis by sticking with what they have.

One other thing won't change in a hurry either.

In Victory Lane at Indianapolis the winning driver is handed a bottle of milk to drink.

Power has been rehearsing, adding chocolate flavouring.

If he or Briscoe become the first Australian to win the Indy 500 there'll be milk, chocolate aplenty too, champagne that night and a whopping cheque the day after.

And, more importantly, a special place in motor racing history.