Now that is NTT IndyCar Series short oval racing. As we head to Wisconsin for the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America, let’s pay one last piece of respect toward IndyCar’s short oval formula.
If Roger Penske, Mark Miles and Doug Boles wanted an idea of how to get their product to stand out from the encroaching spectre of Formula 1, then that was it.
The Bommarito Automotive Group 500 was a 260-lap onslaught of entertainment.
It had everything. On-track battles for the lead, a full display of driver skill in handling traffic, and strategy at the end. There were massive maneuvers that took a spectator’s breath away, and constant action throughout the field.
From the drop of the green flag, the event was a motorsports extravaganza and the perfect example of the series’ close competition. Winning driver Kyle Kirkwood had to survive, strike when the opportunity presented itself and not make mistakes or be unlucky like Josef Newgarden.
IndyCar deserves a ton of credit for working with teams and partners to continue improving the on-track product for their short tracks. The combination of aerodynamic body pieces, years with the current chassis, the hybrid, Firestone’s exceptional tire quality and the revolutionary high-line practice has created IndyCar’s best racing show. This is now two races at World Wide Technology Raceway that have produced this action, with two others at the Milwaukee doubleheader last year that were similar.
With the show put on from this last weekend, it’s time that IndyCar takes a bow.
If this is what is to be expected, then forget about the new chassis; keep this one just for this racing alone.
I kid, but can you fault someone for thinking that? Now the series has to fully commit, more than ever, to giving fans more ovals.
More importantly, every available resource has to be committed to figuring out how to make that work. That is a must because what transpired Sunday night was some of the most entertaining racing the series will have for the majority of the year.
Look, I know the first remark on this ageless request: fans don’t buy tickets.
The road and street course competition since the hybrid was introduced at Mid-Ohio last year has been lackluster. However, since the series has a better return on investment with those types of tracks, they proliferate the schedule. Without really knowing the specifics, cities and scenic race venues seem able to make 30,000 fans in attendance work for their bottom line compared to ovals.
Personally, I don’t get it either. I paid and sat in the stands at Gateway, so the cost is known. That was the seventh race I’ve watched there since the venue returned in 2017. I didn’t go to the first one, missed 2020 due to a deployment, and took last year off — and boy did I regret that.
I also went to Milwaukee in 2024, and previously to Iowa on multiple occasions, until the heat took its toll on me. When these events are announced, I make a personal financial commitment to going because oval racing is thrilling from the stands.
Every time I go with my teenage son, and he and I intently watch the cars moving up through the field, various lines the drivers are trying and we love to see the teams ready for pit stops. Then, as everything works itself to the end, we are transfixed on the strategy and how it plays out. For example, on Sunday, we stared at Scott Dixon’s pit box for 10 laps, ignoring the race during that time, waiting to see if his crew would set up and thus cut off his fuel run to the end.
This type of racing is IndyCar’s best product to entertain fans consistently enough over other series, so it should be maximized. F1 has a major foothold now, fully intent on taking eyeballs away with five North American Grands Prix and one even overlapping the Indianapolis 500 next year. NASCAR plateaued but is still the oval master as far as that product is concerned.
It’s time IndyCar jumps back into the oval grind as standing out within this environment is critical, and there is a mega-product that can be sold to do that, and it’s this package.
But it has to work for fans.
If money is the biggest factor, then it’s time the series looks at what the true bottom line is for them. What’s important? Getting people in the gate, or setting a price point you want to hit to make money?
At Gateway, a $33 deal for Sunday was offered, with a voucher for a hot dog and soda. And the seats were general admission, which was the first 20 or so rows. I bought two of those and paid separately for paddock passes so my son could roam the garage to meet his heroes. But that deal was late in the offering, maybe because not enough seats had been sold.
That should be the entry right there. It was a great deal. The value was there, and the seats didn’t require me to be nudged up to someone who realized I forgot deodorant that day (apologies to the rows in front of and behind me).
Track promoters, mainly NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports, who own the majority of the country’s ovals, have to flex better to fans’ needs to get them in the gate, and fill the place up. Introduce them to this great racing product. Use the same deal offered by Gateway.
Listen, INDYCAR, to add those ovals, this is the type of package that should be offered. Find one track that’s willing, and if necessary, promote it yourself to reduce the risk and offer the Gateway special with the vouchers. Make half the stands general admission and let fans sit wherever they want. Then put on the best racing product any spectator will see all year, leaving fans wanting more, because they will.
This is what happened at Gateway. It will happen later at Milwaukee and Nashville. Once Iowa’s turns are weathered in, it will do likewise there again.
Give the fans more of what happened Sunday.
Give them more IndyCar short track racing.
Tom is an IndyCar writer at Frontstretch, joining in March 2023. Besides writing the IndyCar Previews and frequent editions of Inside IndyCar, he will hop on as a fill-in guest on the Open Wheel podcast The Pit Straight. A native Hoosier, he calls Fort Wayne home. Follow Tom on Twitter @TomBlackburn42.