Iowa Speedway Boosts IndyCar’s Efforts to Match F1

“I think of this event now as a ‘Field of Dreams’ of motorsports.”

Originally published in The Des Moines Register. Photo courtesy of IndyCar’s official Instagram.

2023 marked the highest turnout in the NTT IndyCar series’ nearly two-decade run at the Iowa Speedway.

Track access, a pitstop challenge and a stacked concert lineup brought spectators in droves. Organizers did not announce official attendance, but ticket sales were up IndyCar’s communications director, Merrill Cain, said.

Despite crowds reaching an all-time high, the American racing series still lags behind its European cousin, Formula One (F1). As Americans abandon their hometown tracks in favor of F1 races, IndyCar is left with a challenge: How will the series ride the wave of motorsports popularity surging in the U.S. instead of being swept under? 

The Penske Corporation, in partnership with Hy-Vee, has seemed to crack the code. When racing didn’t sell enough tickets at the door, the series jumped on supplemental spectacles.

“This is not a race weekend, it’s an event weekend.” Bud Denker, the president of the Penske Corporation, said.

Once a race weekend without much flair or fuss, this year’s race was brimming with festivities. From free pit lane access for families on Friday to Carrie Underwood taking the stage on Saturday, the perks are necessary to keep the racing series relevant in an era of F1 fanfare.

“We’ve raced here for a couple decades now,” Denker said. “It’s always been terrific racing and we draw 10,000 to 15,000 people a race, which is a good crowd. But to get to the next level, you had to do something different. And that difference was what Hy-Vee added to the party regarding the entertainment.”

IndyCar’s entertainment focus can be seen on-screen as well.

The release of Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” pushed racing into the spotlight, spiking American viewership — including an unprecedented number of young female spectators. IndyCar needed to respond — and do so quickly.

The CW- and Vice-produced “100 Days to Indy” — a television series that peeks into the drivers’ lives from the start of the race calendar to the Indianapolis 500 — squeezed IndyCar into the growing market for sports reality streaming shows. 

“We’ve got over three million people who watched most of our series,” Denker said. “Of the people who watched it, over 50% of them have never watched an IndyCar race before.” 

That number pales in comparison to “Drive to Survive’s” 6.8 million and counting views, as reported by a YouGov Sports Media Landscape study early this year.

IndyCar has a lot going for it: cost, competition and character.

“For the fan, it’s an incredible access to the car, to the racetrack, everywhere for a very affordable ticket,” Romain Grosjean, a former F1 and current IndyCar Andretti Autosport driver, said.

The “everywhere” Grosjean spoke of includes unparalleled access to garages, drivers and pit lane events. In racing series of a similar caliber, a VIP ticket with a hefty price tag attached would gain equivalent access.

Iowa, specifically, seems to represent what IndyCar is all about: luring Midwesterners in with the promise of on-stage entertainment and then making them fall in love with the on-track performance.

“The uniqueness of this short oval is it’s got a lot of character,” Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward said. “There’s multiple lanes, some of the best racing you’ll see in motorsports all year… You’re constantly in traffic. You’re constantly fighting other people.”

Throughout the weekend, drivers had nothing but praise for the speedway located 34 miles outside of Des Moines.

“I think of this event now as a ‘Field of Dreams’ of motorsports,” Josef Newgarden, a Team Penske driver and the winner of the Hy-Vee Homefront 250 on Saturday and Hy-Vee One Step 250 on Sunday.

Affectionately referred to as “Mr. Iowa Speedway,” Newgarden won in Iowa this weekend for the sixth time. The doubleheader marked the Tennessee-born driver’s fifth consecutive oval race win, joining record-holding racers A.J. Foyt and Al Unser Sr.

The Iowa races highlighted the competitiveness of IndyCar.

The Hy-Vee Homefront 250 presented by Instacart and the Hy-Vee One Step 250 presented by Gatorade broke the speedway record for on-track passes on Saturday and Sunday with 1,502 and 1,168 passes respectively. The oval’s brief 0.894-mile loop favors quick and competitive conditions. 

A point of pride for the racing series is the unpredictability of the championship. The 28 cars have limited engineering changes, unlike F1 where the gulf between team budgets and free-for-all car design spreads the field wide.

“It’s the best racing product in the world,” Christian Lundgaard of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing said. “The cars are equal… So obviously it is a very tight field, which makes it cool because the racing is close. Which F1 isn’t, in my opinion.”

Seven different winners have sprayed champagne from the top podium step so far this season.

“Not one, not two, but seven,” Denker said. “So, there’s 27 people on this track on Saturday and Sunday who could win a race, not one or two.”

In the 2023 F1 Constructors’ Championship, 229 points split Red Bull in first and Mercedes in second. Max Verstappen leads the Drivers’ Championship by 110 points. Verstappen, an F1 Red Bull Racing driver, won the Hungarian Grand Prix by over 30 seconds on Sunday.

In contrast, 80 points separate Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou and Newgarden. On Sunday, Will Power’s Penske car finished less than a second behind his teammate and the race leader’s car.

Lundgaard’s unexpected win on the streets of Toronto and Newgarden’s doubly decorated Iowa run prevented Palou’s surge. The championship is still in contention.

As F1 fans discover IndyCar’s wheel-to-wheel action, the stands become packed.

Jerseys with “O’Ward” and “Newgarden” scrawled across the back appeared in the grandstands, in line at the concession stands and on tractor-pulled trolleys. However, F1 team merchandise infiltrated the speedway as well. 

Nicholas Rhody was one of those fans wearing an F1 Mercedes AMG baseball-style jersey.

Rhody, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign student, grew up watching NASCAR with his family. After tiring of the routine ovals, the 20-year-old got hooked on F1’s twisting street and road courses.

The Iowa IndyCar race weekend marked Rhody’s second IndyCar race. Rhody joined the fan base after his girlfriend’s father offered him a ticket. He’s been hooked ever since.

 “At that point, I’d never watched IndyCar… I started thinking, ‘Well, why haven’t I?,’” Rhody said.

The Andretti Autosport fan who rooted for Grosjean come Sunday, Rhody bemoaned the eras of team supremacy that result from F1’s engineering regulations, budget and format.

“Mercedes dominance got a little boring. Red Bull dominance right now is [too],” Rhody said. “You watch a race and if Max Verstappen doesn’t crash or get a penalty, he’s probably going to win. In IndyCar, you don’t really know what’s going to happen.”

While IndyCar’s dynamic driving and the Iowa Speedway’s transition to an event weekend are praised, drivers have an even brighter vision for the future of the series.

Lundgaard said he’d like to see the grandstands sweep around the oval to allow for more seating. O’Ward called for an expanded calendar into Central and South America. Several drivers suggested international streaming for “100 Days to Indy” and a second TV series season that spans the whole championship.

As the racing series considers plans moving forward, it is stuck somewhere between embracing the marketing genius behind Formula 1 and rejecting its status as the American counterpart.

The balance, however, has seemed to work in their favor. The promise of good racing never disappoints, and an Ed Sheeran concert to top it off doesn’t hurt either.

“I think it’s important for people to experience racing and get into it and that way, the message can spread,” Rhody said.