INDIANAPOLIS — Buckle up for more pain at the pump.
Experts are predicting a new spike in gas prices locally, as early as Tuesday.
The potential sticker shock comes just as travelers are leaving the track, on the heels of the holiday weekend, and as all of us zoom into the summer travel season.
Homeward bound from Indy to Cleveland for race fan Dan Kendzierski and his buddies was a lot more painful at the gas pump this year.
"It's always a little harder on the way home," Kendzierski said. "Stings a little more on the way home."
Drivers are paying $4.60 a gallon on average right now, the most expensive we've ever seen on a Memorial Day.
"It hurts the pocketbook at the end of the day when you're adding everything up," Kendzierski said. "When you're sitting there doing the math, one guy pays for the gas. One guy pays for the food and when you're evening it out, yeah we're paying that guy a little more this year."
Even local race fans are feeling the pinch.
Toni Ortega and her husband David spent race weekend in their RV in the American Legion lot.
"We use diesel and it's over $5 a gallon and this gets about seven miles to the gallon," David said.
"Yeah, so coming from Muncie, it'll cost us about $150 both ways," his wife added.
"Gas prices are brutal. That's one of the reasons I didn't bring my coach back here," said race fan Ken Gilmore from Chico, California.
He used to drive his RV cross-country, but now rents a travel trailer instead. "It cost a dollar a mile just for fuel. That's 2,500 miles. You do the math."
Now, experts are warning about another spike.
GasBuddy's analyst Patrick De Haan tweeted Monday to beware of a jump as soon as Tuesday to $4.79 in the Great Lakes region and in Florida.
He thinks prices will soon go even higher.
"As we progress beyond Memorial Day, I now peg our odds at $5 a gallon gasoline nationwide at 60%," De Haan said. "So that could be coming."
He upped the odds to 65% shortly after that interview. It all means where travelers are going, might change this summer.
"We have to look at it a little bit closer before we actually decide to do something," David Ortega said.
"Because we have plans to go to Florida. We go to California usually every year," his wife added. "We're going to have to sit down and write it out on paper and figure out do we really want to spend all of that."
"It makes a difference yeah – what car you're driving and things like that – the trip you would have gone on. It changes things," Kendzierski said.
He and his friends had some solace for their trip to and from Indy. They installed a solar panel on the van hauling their camper this year. That decision helped offset the bigger gas budget.
"Normally we bring a generator and pay $100 just to fuel the generator, but we got the solar panel going so we're able to put the $100 in the van this year for gas," Kendzierski said. "It saved us a little money. With $4.50, $5 a gallon it makes a difference."
Experts believe high gas prices hovering near the $4.50 to $5 mark are likely to last through Labor Day.