I’ll be the first to admit that the Iowa IndyCar weekend exceeded my expectations in terms of the racing action.
That’s where the positives of the doubleheader weekend end, unless you count no traffic as a positive.
Let’s rip the band-aid off here at the beginning. The number of spectators for the NTT IndyCar Series’ weekend at Iowa Speedway was abysmal at best.
IndyCar has raced at Iowa Speedway since 2007, playing host to mostly full grandstands during much of their relationship together. Whether the race was backed by Iowa corn farmers or the Iowa-based Hy-Vee grocery store chain, there always seemed to be a decently large crowd at the short oval.
In 2024, there were pre- and post-race concerts for both races, and Hy-Vee basically wallpapered the track with their logo. The chain ran audio advertisements for the race weekend throughout their stores and people knew when that race weekend happened with all of the various bits of merchandise in every store.
But then Hy-Vee got a new CEO who wanted to refocus the business back to basics, and that meant canceling the sponsorship of the IndyCar race weekend.
Which meant canceling their promotions around the IndyCar race weekend.
Which meant canceling nearly all promotions around the IndyCar race weekend.
But don’t just take my word for it.
On Sunday night, I had dinner at a steakhouse near my hotel in Altoona, which is about 30 minutes west of Iowa Speedway. After sitting at my table for a few minutes, I noticed that many of the people here recognized each other from across the dining room and went to greet each other, so there must be a lot of locals dining in the restaurant.
I decided to do a bit of market research, asking about a dozen people if they saw or heard any promotion for the race, whether it was on TV, radio, online or in a newspaper. Only one person said they saw something, and it was one post on Facebook about the race.
Everyone else either had no idea the race was this weekend or forgot about it.
Granted, a couple of them mentioned Hy-Vee promoting the race last year and the concerts, and one person said, “Once the concerts went away, a lot of reason for going went away, too.”
Then let’s look at Iowa Speedway itself. The track’s social media account posted nothing the entire weekend. In fact, their last post mentioning IndyCar was a repost back in February.
That’s simply inexcusable. I don’t care that NASCAR owns the track; it would seem to make good business sense that a track would want to post about large races happening throughout their calendar year.
So what do we have here? We have an indifferent track social media account, an indifferent promotional attitude and we’re supposed to act surprised that there were probably four-figures worth of spectators for each race this past weekend with ticket prices that were still high?
The fact that Iowa Speedway is located in the town of Middle of Nowhere, Iowa, is not an excuse. NASCAR will sell out the facility in the first week of August, just like they did last year.
The following week, about 45 minutes south of Iowa Speedway, dozens of sprint cars will invade Knoxville for the 64th Knoxville Nationals.
That race will be a sellout with over 21,000 attendees and thousands more watching on Dirtvision as one driver will take home over $200,000 when you add up their winnings from Saturday and the preliminary days of racing.
And yet IndyCar’s foray into Iowa by all accounts looked embarrassing. Despite many races at near-full capacity at Road America, Barber Motorsports Park and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Iowa Speedway looked like a ghost town.
The difference is striking and needs to bring about a wake-up call and some massively difficult conversations in the Penske Entertainment marketing offices, because what everybody in the paddock saw this past weekend was unacceptable.
Sponsors expect to see their names flash by thousands of people as their drivers compete. When those companies see empty grandstands, what is their incentive to spend money on racing?
If a few companies brought guests to Iowa for their first race, what kind of a first impression did they get seeing more aluminum bleachers than jerseys of Pato O’Ward, Alex Palou, Josef Newgarden, Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi?
A lack of promotion has nearly killed this race weekend. IndyCar is planning on racing at Iowa Speedway in 2026, according to quotes given by Bud Denker to The Indianapolis Star, but nothing is set in stone yet.
Based on this past weekend, does IndyCar even want to come back to Iowa?
As said in a previous Upon Further Review, Roger Penske built his business empire off of his personal motto that “Effort Equals Results,” and that shows throughout his decades of success in the corporate world.
Iowa’s lack of promotion further shows that there was no effort put into this race, and as such, there were no results.
And there might not be any results in 2026 because nobody did anything at all to promote this race and it likely was a massive money loser.
Knoxville draws a capacity crowd every year to The Granddaddy of Them All in August. Fans will come to see races, just give them a reason to do so.
IndyCar better figure that reason out quickly, or else the series will likely have one less oval race in 2026.
Given Iowa Speedway’s relationship with IndyCar, it’s a sad way to go out, but given the attitude towards the race weekend by all parties concerned, should we ever have expected anything different?
At least Palou finally got his first short oval win.
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.
Are you kidding me? The track didn’t promote their race on X? Holy cow what a fail.
If “Nascar is dying,” is Indycar dying as well. I constantly hear about Nascar ratings being bad,… but Indycar is thriving yesterday their ratings and attendance is worse. 🤔🤷🏼♂️🤣
Yeah, seems the “NASCAR is dying” narrative is being driven by people who want the sport to revert to what it was in the 80’s. That’s not going to happen, for a multitude of reasons. They assume their displeasure, and the displeasure of their personal echo chambers as meaning everyone thinks as they do.
Time stands still for no one, and though NASCAR ratings have been down a bit overall, they seem to be doing an effective job at attracting the fans which advertisers actually want.
Indycar seems to be at an existential inflection point. For some reason, it seems Penske hasn’t the foggiest notion of what to do with the sport, while what’s left of their fan base gets older and older. It would appear either they figure it out soon, or the sport either becomes completely niche, or dies altogether.
IRL/CART shot itself in the foot back in the 1990’s, and since the reunification have done (I think) a decent job building the series back. It’s a tough row to hoe when you have at least half of the previous fan base alienated and angry. As this article points out, there is still room for more improvement.
It’s a shame, really, because I think the current car is racing really well and they have a lot of good talent stacked in the series – and a good dose of it being younger, likeable (marketable) guys who have a lot of years left in front of them. It would be such a waste if they can’t figure out the marketing/promotion side of it to capitalize on all the good things they have going for them.
Agree on all points really. I think the racing is enjoyable, and I do watch most weeks. Sure, there are a few processional races, but most F1 races fit this description, and obviously they are not hurting for fans.
The current car is quite boring. Boring engine note, boring in that it’s nearly a spec car, so any innovation is done on a micro scale, not a macro scale. I get the “why”…the budgets aren’t there to support big innovation, so the cars are restricted accordingly. Doesn’t help that Fox is aligned with those who hate anything that’s not akin to a Hemi, so they largely bury the hybird power information during broadcast.
Also agree the younger drivers could be marketable, especially Indycar’s version of Carson Hocevar, which is of course Santino Ferrucci. Reckless, sometimes fast, but nearly always charismatic.
As a season-ticket holder in the Newton club, which we always buy the same seats for the NASCAR races.All that the Indy people would have needed to do, is contact all of us season ticket holders and make it more user-friendly to attend the race and we would’ve probably packed the place.
WWTR put the attendance at Iowa to shame. WWTR is not owned by NASCAR though.