Metallica Joins IndyCar’s Meyer-Shank Racing For Nashville Finale

The incredibly striking “Maximum Metallica” Indy car that Felix Rosenqvist will drive at Nashville.

Meyer-Shank Racing Photo

Meyer-Shank Racing is bringing the heavy metal to “Music City” as Metallica has teamed up with the NTT IndyCar Series team for the season’s final race at Nashville on August 31.

Felix Rosenqvist’s No. 60 SiriusXM Honda will feature an incredible “Maximum Metallica” livery designed by the team’s longtime graphic specialist Brad Hoffner.

“Maximum Metallica” is a celebration of the band’s new year-round SiriusXM channel. The special design – inspired by Metallica’s legendary 1984 album, “Ride the Lightning” — will debut for this weekend’s Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway.

The new channel dedicated to and curated by the iconic band, Maximum Metallica (Channel 42) will launch on SiriusXM this Friday, August 29 at 12:00 pm ET. The channel will be available for free in all SiriusXM-equipped vehicles through the month of September, giving non-subscribers a chance to experience the human-curated, premium service.

Metallica Mania

As part of the channel’s launch celebration, Metallica will perform an exclusive live concert at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, NY, sponsored by Hertz, which will premiere on the channel on Monday, September 1 at 12:00 pm ET.

Metallica live at Stephen Talkhouse will rebroadcast several times and will be available on the SiriusXM app.

The Metallica-inspired livery marks the fifth creative collaboration between MSR and SiriusXM this season — and it promises to close out the year on a high note.

“We’ve had some really successful collaborations with SiriusXM this season, and they’ve truly resonated with the fans,” said MSR co-owner Mike Shank. “It’s been incredible to see the excitement around each new livery and musical tribute. Wrapping up the year with Metallica feels like the perfect encore.”

Meyer-Shank Racing’s two-driver lineup of Rosenqvist and Marcus Armstrong in the No. 66 Honda are both in the top 10 of the NTT IndyCar Series standings. Other teams with two drivers in the top 10 including Chip Ganassi Racing with 2025 champion Alex Palou and six-time champ Scott Dixon (third), Arrow McLaren with Pato O’Ward (second) and Christian Lundgaard (fourth) and Andretti Global with Kyle Kirkwood (fifth) and Colton Herta (sixth).

Although Meyer-Shank has yet to win a race in 2025, the popular music collaborations with SiriusXM have been a big-winner with racing fans and satellite radio listeners this season.

Meyer-Shank Hits The Right Notes With Its Liveries

In 2025 alone, the team paired up with “Creed” at the 109^th Indianapolis 500 on May 25, followed by a special “Ozzy Osbourne” car at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on July 6 to honor his historic final concert on July 5.

Then came an incredible “Grateful Dead” livery at the Monterey, California on July 27 and again at Portland, Oregon on August 10.

“This project for us started a couple years ago when Jim and Tim Meyer (Shanks partners at Meyer-Shank Racing) had a plan and a thought about artists with channels collaborating with us with Sirius/XM as a major partner of ours for years now,” Shanks told me in an interview at Portland. “We got a little bit lucky. The first person we had was Carrie Underwood at Iowa a couple years ago and that bumped us to another level socially. We took notice of that and so did Sirius/XM.

“It started to grow from there. Tim Meyer and the folks at Sirius started thinking about who else could we do this with? We’ve done it with a lot of artists now and a lot of the time the artist has been at the track.”

With metrics and numbers increasing through the collaboration, the partnership grew into this year’s far-reaching involvement with “Creed.” That was followed by “Black Sabbath’s” Ozzy Osbourne car, then the iconic “Grateful Dead” and now with one of the biggest groups of its era, “Metallica.”

“It has put a lot more eyeballs on what we’re doing here within our team and within IndyCar in 2025,” Shanks said. “Creed at the Indianapolis 500, the biggest race of the year, had 7.1 million viewers on that race from the FOX telecast, as well as the 350,000 spectators at the sold-out Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“The traction we got from that was big. It got as much or close to what we got when we won the Indy 500 with Helio Castroneves in 2021 with no artist collaboration. So, it was great.”

Creed was so excited about having a car in the Indianapolis 500, they took in the full experience at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“Creed was just starting their World Tour and they’re out doing it now, and they all bought in to this concept,” Shanks explained. “They came to the track; they came two days early and went to the team parties. They hung with us at the bus after the race. They were great, great partners, and we are working on more collaborations not only in 2025, but in 2026.”

The wraps are off on the latest collaboration, and it features Metallica, as “Music City” will come to life with the final IndyCar Series race weekend of the season at Nashville Superspeedway.

Rosenqvist will debut the “Maximum Metallica” livery during the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix — Sunday, August 31 at 2:00 PM ET, live on FOX and SiriusXM Channel 218.