IndyStar's May lineup includes major police investigation, Indy 500 exclusives. Subscribe today
With Indiana's 2025 legislative session wrapped, it's time to turn our focus to the end of the school year and spring sports, the start of the Indiana Fever's highly anticipated season, the Indianapolis 500 and what we all hope will be a long playoff run by the Indianapolis Pacers.
IndyStar will be there for all of it, capturing the highs and lows of spring in Central Indiana. But we'll also publish a number of stories that have been months, and even years, in the making. From a powerful investigation into police misconduct in northern Indiana to the tale of a local folk legend, we'll deliver unparalleled, exclusive storytelling in the month ahead.
IndyStar subscribers will have unlimited access to each of these planned stories, videos and photo galleries, along with the rest of our award-winning local journalism. Visit indystar.com/subscribe to sign up for unlimited access today.
I hope you'll find these examples of our best local journalism as fulfilling to read and watch as we've found them to report.
Lawless: A three-year investigation of racism and police brutality in Elkhart
Decades after D.C. Stephenson's Ku Klux Klan revived the Horse Thief Detective Agency to enforce its hateful agenda, a rogue band of police officers in Elkhart authored another bleak and costly chapter in Indiana's interconnected history of policing, power and race.
These young, White and aggressive officers — they called themselves Wolverines — turned Elkhart's Black neighborhoods into their sadistic playground in the 1980s and '90s. Court records and interviews detail officers competing to see how many arrests they could make during overnight shifts and heading to the neighborhoods with the expressed intent to "kick some ass."
Department leadership, officers told IndyStar, too often turned a blind eye to the Wolverines' brutal tactics.
To date, Elkhart's liability insurance carriers have paid nearly $27 million to settle allegations of misconduct leading to wrongful imprisonment. A deep distrust of policing remains in the city's Black community.
IndyStar investigative reporter Kristine Phillips and visual journalist Mykal McEldowney spent part of three years on Lawless, our multipart series on the damage wrought by these rogue police and the lasting impacts on those they bullied, beat and wrongfully imprisoned.
Lawless publishes Tuesday at IndyStar.com and in the May 4 print edition.
The legend of 'Mr. First in Line', the Arizona junkman who became an Indy 500 icon
Penske, Unser, Foyt, Castroneves. Indianapolis 500 fans know the names who made the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" the cultural phenomenon it is today.
But how about Chuck Lynn. How about Larry Bisceglia?
You might know the latter as "Mr. First in Line." From 1950 to 1987, Bisceglia was the first fan to line up for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway gates to open. IndyStar's McEldowney spent months interviewing those who knew Bisceglia to tell the story of how this "salt of the earth" junkyard worker from Arizona became an Indy 500 icon.
IndyStar sports reporter Dana Hunsinger Benbow partnered with McEldowney to write the story that accompanies an 11-minute documentary on Bisceglia's unique place in Indy 500 lore. Here's an excerpt:
"Every spring as the wildflowers began to sprout, turning the earthy tones of the landscape into bright colorful splendor, Bisceglia would set off in his van and drift far away, a long, 30-hour trek 1,900 miles away, to the place he loved most.
And when he would arrive at his beloved Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Bisceglia would transform into an outright superstar."
"Mr. First in Line" will publish in early May at IndyStar.com.
Let's talk for a moment about Indy 500 fashion, which tends to be more John Cena than Giorgio Armani.
Then you have IMS and IndyCar President Doug Boles, nattily dressed and seemingly everywhere in May. More than once, our news staff has asked, "How many suits must that man have?"
Later this May, Hunsinger Benbow will attempt to answer that question in what should be a fun read for any Indy 500 fan.
Thanks for letting me give you a taste of what's on deck this May at IndyStar. If you already support our work to keep Indianapolis and Central Indiana informed, thank you. If you'd like to support us and receive unlimited access to these stories and everything we publish, please visit indystar.com/subscribe today.
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Despite a run of five DNFs in his last eight IndyCar starts — a stint that includes an Iowa Speedway doubleheader where he was undoubtedly the fastest car in both races, but could only muster second and 10th — Josef Newgarden said he feels 'just as positive as always' and stands firm that his No. 2 Chevrolet Team Penske crew has all of the necessary components to return to his championship-challenging form of his first six years at IndyCar's winningest team. Or at least he's trying to be. Whether the small ounce of doubt he shed light on when speaking to reporters at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca was a self-deprecating attempt at humor or a legitimate concern of whether he'll return to form in the series where he won championships in 2017 and 2019 and finished runner-up three consecutive years from 2020-22, only Newgarden knows. 'I don't even know how to speak to all this. I really don't,' Newgarden said ahead of the 14th round of the 2025 IndyCar season — so far a winless campaign for Newgarden and one that has coincided with the longest winless stretch of his IndyCar career since he delivered that first of 31 wins in 2015. 'I can only control what I can control. I can't imagine it stays like this forever. How could it? But maybe it does. I don't know, I'm not sure. That would be a bummer, but you know what? If it does, though, it's been a good ride. It's been a pretty good ride.' The introspection from Newgarden comes at the tail end of what's been a miserable two-month stretch since the week leading into the Indianapolis 500, where his team and series owner Roger Penske fired his entire IndyCar team leadership trio — team president and Newgarden strategist Tim Cindric, managing director Ron Ruzewski and general manager Kyle Moyer — in the wake of the cars of Newgarden and Will Power being popped by IndyCar's tech inspection team for illegally modified attenuators, the program's second major technical infraction in 14 months in the series Penske owns. After dropping out of the Fast 12 and initially expecting to start 11th, Newgarden and his two-time defending 500-winning crew were dropped to the final row with a 32nd starting spot for the infraction. And after climbing his way into the top 10 by the race's halfway point and charging toward the top 5 with a legitimate chance to make history and three-peat, Newgarden was forced to retire from the race with a mechanical failure. Following a recovery drive on the streets of Detroit to ninth, the 34-year-old who a year ago signed a multi-year extension with his IndyCar home since 2017 experienced something he'd done only once his entire IndyCar career (the other within the first five races of his rookie campaign in 2012): three consecutive DNFs. Their causes were varied: a wrong place, wrong time crash he had no fault in while running up front at World Wide Technology Raceway, an over-aggressive move of his own that turned into a spin and crash at Road America and a Lap 1 incident where he seemed to lock up his tires heading into the first corner of the race, leaving Newgarden skidding off track, ending his day, and collecting Graham Rahal in the process. Tack on back-breaking bad luck — or poor strategy management, depending on who you speak to in the paddock — at Iowa Speedway, races he could've easily swept under the right circumstances, and add another crash Sunday on the streets of Toronto when he had nowhere to go to avoid the walled car of Jacob Abel, and one of the inarguable voices and faces of the sport is left with few words to describe how his racing world has been turned upside down. How O'Ward will celebrate Iowa win: Gifting Josef Newgarden Kit-Kats: 'A lot of salt to get rid of' 'It's bizarre, so bizarre,' Newgarden said. 'I don't even know how to. Let's just take (the Indy 500) as an example. What are we going to do differently that happened race day? It's just so random and bizarre, and that's how 90% of the year's been. I don't know how you react to that. 'I'll be a broken record saying this, but I know exactly what we're capable of. It might not be glaringly obvious on the outside, but it's glaringly obvious to me.' Newgarden was asked whether there was any solace he could take knowing that even a solid multi-win season this year would've been unlikely to deliver his elusive third championship he's been fighting for now for six years and counting. 'That's so hard to answer, because things change so quickly. If we win the Indy 500 this year, I don't know what this year looks like. It's an alternate universe,' he said. 'The cascade of that, the flow of events that happens after something like that, you cannot predict what the year looks like.' From Iowa race weekend: Team Penske has fast cars but 'leave so much on the table' as upsetting season continues Newgarden said he was lucky to escape his Toronto crash a week ago without a broken hand, after the snap of the wheel on impact ricocheted off his hands — a move that often can break wrists, fingers or hands. With four races left on the calendar — all of which venues he's yet to win at in his career, culminating in a season finale hosted by his hometown track in Nashville Superspeedway — Newgarden said it's not overly pertinent for the No. 2 crew to cap the year with a victory and snap his winless streak that sits at 17 races and counting. 'I just want us to do the best job we can within our control. That's what we try to do every weekend and what we continue to do, and the rest will take care of itself,' he said. 'If we're doing that, we should all be happy, and that's what we're going to judge ourselves on. 'It just kinda is what it is at this point, and we just keep moving forward. That's all I can say. We've got a great team and a bunch of the same group that knows how to win championships and 500s, so I feel good showing up to the track with this group.'
