A Month Of Heavy Promotion Pays Off Big For IndyCar At Three Key Venues

Coming off a 30-day period that included three venues that heavily promoted its race weekend has paid off for the NTT IndyCar Series.

It’s proof that promotion is key to creating interest and drawing a crowd. In the process, it has created a blueprint for other track promoters to follow for its IndyCar contests.

“I think you’re absolutely right,” Andretti Autosport driver Alexander Rossi said. “I think it provides a template for others. It’s a case study, right? It shows what is possible.

Most things in life require capital and investment to grow. I don’t think an IndyCar event is any different. We obviously have a huge amount of support and gratitude to our current and existing promoters for what they do. We wouldn’t have a championship without them.

“However, we all want to see this series grow, see it continue to evolve and invite a new fan base in, introduce them to our sport. That requires, like I said, time and money to do that.

“We have a template for what has been successful. Hopefully it’s a roadmap for other promoters going forward.”

It all started the weekend of July 23-24 when Hy-Vee, a supermarket chain based in in West Des Moines, Iowa, spent a year promoting an IndyCar doubleheader at the seven-eighths-mile Iowa Speedway. It was two days of back-to-back races that featured two major concerts each day.

Hy-Vee worked with music promoter Live Nation and had a full concert before the Saturday race – the Hy-VeeDeals.com 250 that featured Tim McGraw. On a day when the temperature exceeded 100 degrees, the track was sold out of all grandstand tickets and suites. Hy-Vee constructed temporary suites in Turn 1 using the same company that builds the same type of suites for the annual Waste Management Phoenix Open at The Stadium Course at TPC Scottsdale.

After watching Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden win the race, they were treated to a second full concert by Florida-George Line afterwards.

The following day, Gwen Stefani performed before the Hy-Vee Salute to Farmers 300, Pato O’Ward of Mexico won the race, and the entertainment concluded with a full concert by Blake Shelton, who is married to Stefani making them one of music’s “Power Couples.”

Actor Mark Wahlberg was the Grand Marshall and has a business relationship with Hy-Vee as many of the stores feature popular fast-food chain “Wahlbergers” inside its facility.

Penske Entertainment leased the shuttered Iowa Speedway from NASCAR, partnered with Hy-Vee and its then CEO Randy Edeker, and went to work to create one of the biggest sports weekends in Iowa history.

According to Penske Corporation President Bud Denker, there were less than 800 tickets that were unsold for Sunday’s race. That meant a two-day combined crowd of 80,000 rans watched IndyCar at Iowa Speedway.

Edeker has since retired as CEO of Hy-Vee but remains as the company’s chairman and will continue to work actively on its relationship with IndyCar. Aaron Wiese, who was very active in this year’s Hy-Vee IndyCar weekend, is the new CEO after serving company vice chairman and president of Hy-Vee Supply Chain and Subsidiaries.

After a trip to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for an IndyCar/NASCAR tripleheader that was borne out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the series was actually the opening act, not the main event, at the Brickyard. This was the first year the crowd was completely unrestricted by COVID protocols, and the attendance was up, according to Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles and Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles.

Both estimated the crowd to be around 50,000 spectators.

Because of the massive size of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a crowd of 40,000 to 50,000 can be swallowed up by the acreage of the world’s largest sporting stadium.

Next up was the second Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee on August 5-7. The event is the creation of Big Machine Record executive and founder Scott Borchetta and Justin Marks, a former NASCAR driver who has become a successful entrepreneur and the owner of NASCAR’s TrackHouse Racing.

In a city built on entertainment, the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix takes over the city. It includes a street course that includes the Korean War Veterans Bridge, winds near the entertainment district of Broadway, then races back over the bridge and around Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.

For the second year in a row, ticket sales were brisk, and 61,000 fans were expected for Sunday. After a lengthy delay because of a lightning storm in the area, combined with high heat and humidity, some of those fans likely watched the IndyCar race from one of the many beer gardens or bars.

It was still a lively event with major entertainment that created a buzz that took over one of the booming cities in the United States.

In just its second year, the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix has become IndyCar’s “Long Beach Grand Prix of the East” according to racing legend Mario Andretti.

Scott Dixon won the 53^rd race of his IndyCar career, breaking a tie with Andretti for second on the all-time victory list.

This past weekend, IndyCar made its annual trip to the Greater St. Louis area for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois. Track owner Curtis Francois revived the facility in 2013 and joined forces with John Bommarito, President of the Bommarito Automotive Group, the largest automobile groups in the Midwest.

They were able to convince IndyCar to return to their track after a lengthy absence that began following the 2003 race. When IndyCar returned in 2017, the track sold out of all seats that were made available for the race, creating a packed crowd in the frontstretch grandstands.

Since that successful return in 2017, IndyCar, WWTR and Bommarito have formed an even stronger relationship. WWTR General Manager Chris Blair has been creating in promoting the race weekend. He created the “Smack Wall” in Turn 2, which featured drivers “talking smack” about their competitors to turn up the intensity.

According to Blair and Bommarito, ticket sales were the highest since 2017, but on race day the threat of rain may have kept many fans from actually attending the race.

It was still a buzz-filled event that featured great entertainment and a party atmosphere in one of the last weekends of Summer in the Midwest.

Josef Newgarden of Team Penske won the race for the fourth time in his career, and the 25^th IndyCar victory of his career.

“Everybody here at Gateway have been really good promoters,” Andretti Autosport driver Colton Herta said. “We’ve always had outstanding crowds whether that be a day or night race.”

A month-long of heavy publicity has paid big dividends for IndyCar, which had already seen increased attendance at all of its venues this season and higher television ratings on NBC.

But the past month has really kicked it into high gear.

“It is great to see for all the obvious reasons,” said seven-time Nascar Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, who is in his second year as an IndyCar driver at Chip Ganassi Racing. “It was my first time to Iowa, first time here with an Indy car. From afar watching that, I’ve known this race has always had a lot of excitement around it. The group promoting it and sponsoring it has always worked very hard.”

Johnson was a Nascar Cup Series star in a career that began when Nascar was at its Zenith in popularity in the early 2000s. Johnson competed in NASCAR Cup from 2002 to 2020, so he also saw that series drop in popularity, although it continues to draw higher ratings and bigger crowds than IndyCar.

Johnson sees IndyCar improving and becoming more popular, especially since the 100^th Indianapolis 500 in 2016.

“The thing that I really appreciate about the IndyCar Series and the culture here, people within the sport, its promoters, drivers, teams, everybody generally wants to grow the sport and is putting everything that they can in to grow it,” Johnson said. “I didn’t feel like my last few years in Nascar was that way.

“I felt like there was a lot of finger pointing, not participating in helping grow the sport, more rock throwing than anything, pointing fingers at who is doing it wrong. Here it feels like everybody is trying to grow the sport and do it right.”

Scott Dixon is a six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion who began his career in Cart in 2001, joined the Indy Racing League in 2003 and when the two groups unified in 2008, became today’s IndyCar Series.

Dixon likes what he has seen from promoters this season, especially in the past month.

“I think it’s important,” Dixon said. “It’s very important. Having been part of the series for a little bit now, it’s great to see enthusiasm.

“I think what Hy-Vee did was tremendous. Huge congrats to them. It showed that it worked. Got a lot of people back out. Hopefully we can do that at some new venues coming quickly here, even if it’s something like Kentucky, Milwaukee, which is important for the heritage of what IndyCar racing is.

“It shows that, as I said, it can be done. Hopefully they continue to.”

Marcus Ericsson won this year’s 106^th Indianapolis 500 in front of the largest crowd since the 100^th Indianapolis 500 in 2016 was sold out. This year’s crowd approached 300,000 spectators.

Although no other venue on Earth can accommodate that size of crowd, Ericsson likes seeing more spectators at the other races on the schedule.

“I think from a driver perspective as well, it means a lot to see a lot of fans in the stands, see the atmosphere on the race track, before the race, after the race,” Ericsson said. “I think it does make a big difference for the series itself.

“We’ve had some good races lately. I think the series as a whole has a very good trajectory at the moment. We need to keep that going.”

Fellow Chip Ganassi Racing driver Alex Palou, the 2021 champion, also said, “I think it’s good that some promoters like in Iowa, we had a great show, they did a lot of activities around the race. Same with Nashville last year and this year.

“Hopefully everybody continues to compete with themselves from track to track. It just makes IndyCar bigger and better.”

Team Penske’s Will Power believes companies like Hy-Vee and Bommarito Automotive Group, as well as events like the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, should set the standard for all tracks to follow.

“We have some great promoters now,” Power said. “I think that should absolutely be the standard. The tracks have to look a certain way, be promoted really well, have money behind them. That should be the standard.

“I think it’s great to see. It’s great to see people like Hy-Vee stepping up like they are. You couldn’t ask for a better sponsor of an event. Been really impressed. Happy to see that it’s heading that way.”

At 23, Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren SP has become one of the most popular drivers in the IndyCar. That he is from Monterrey, Mexico, he appeals to the Hispanic community and is hoping IndyCar one day stages a race in his home country.

But looking back over the past month, O’Ward likes what he has seen in the United States.

“Having Hy-Vee stands out to me personally,” O’Ward said. “Nashville does, as well. I mean, Hy-Vee packed up a place in Newton, Iowa. Like, that is impressive. They packed up Newton, Iowa full of people for race day.

I think everybody loved it. Everybody loved it because of the concerts and everything else that came with race cars going fast. I think that’s the approach that everybody should go to because it actually gives people very different activities during the day.

“Yeah, it’s really, really cool to see. Like they said, it should be the new standard because that’s what people want to see.

“I think here in World Wide Technology Raceway, in the past few years, probably some of the best events we’ve had on the calendar. It reminds me a lot of what Iowa was like this year, Nashville, I think they do a great job promoting.

“Just thinking of different cool things that he can do to the venue, add onto the activity that the fan can have, just truly enjoy their experience during the weekend.”

Newgarden’s quote after he was involved in an incident with Andretti Autosport driver Romain Grosjean earned a spot on the “Smack Wall.” But Newgarden believes whatever creates interest, is good for IndyCar.

“I love it,” he said. “It’s great. I love it here. I think certainly with Bommarito, the entire group here, it’s provided an exciting place to come racing. It’s close to home for everybody. We’ve got a lot of fans from Indiana, Indianapolis that come down. It’s been a highlight for me.

“I think they’ve done a great job. We need to keep working to see how we can push it further.

“I was going to say it’s amazing that when you let people know when a race is going on, they show up.

“It’s much more than just that. You have to have the power behind it. I think Hy-Vee is probably one of the best examples this year. They made it an event. I think from our side, that’s a big priority on the series, is to make these races events.

“Obviously we care about the racing aspect. I care about the racing more than anything. If I’m a visitor, if I’m a fan, I want to have an event much more than just the race. I think you’re getting that a lot more at these venues.

“Nashville provides that. Now Iowa has become a destination, which is probably the one you thought wouldn’t be, is Newton, Iowa, and they’ve made it that. It’s possible anywhere.

“We can’t thank our partners enough that helped accelerate that.”