The Remarkable Story Of How Hy-Vee Saved Iowa Speedway For IndyCar

In just two years, Hy-Vee has gone from sponsoring an Indy car in the second race of a doubleheader to going “all-in” with IndyCar.

The growing supermarket chain is based in West Des Moines, Iowa and with the combined efforts of IndyCar owner Roger Penske, Hy-Vee, and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, they have saved Iowa Speedway.

The seven-eighths mile short oval has been revived, rejuvenated, and refurbished and will host an NTT IndyCar Series doubleheader Saturday and Sunday.

The Hy-VeeDeals.com 250 presented by DoorDashDASH
, is a 250-lap race on Saturday. It will be television on NBC at 4 p.m. Eastern Time.

Sunday is the Hy-Vee Salute to Farmers 300 presented by Google. That is a 300-lap contest at can be seen on NBC beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.

That is just part of the story, however.

Hy-Vee and Penske Entertainment with have four major concerts as part of the weekend. On Saturday, Tim McGraw performs before the race with Florida-Georgia Line taking the stage after the IndyCar contest.

On Sunday, Gwen Stefani takes the stage before the IndyCar battle and her husband, Blake Shelton is the headliner after the checkered flag.

No other race has brought in this caliber of music talent and Iowa has four great acts on back-to-back days.

But wait, there’s more.

The entire weekend will feature festival activities. Saturday is Kids Day and Hy-Vee has reached out to its community partners to bring 1,000 area youths to the race to give them an experience with activities.

University of Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark will speak to the kids and partake in basketball shooting exhibition.

Sunday’s race will be a “Salute to Farmers.” More than 1,000 farmers will be guests of Iowa Speedway.

There are 50 Food trucks set up around the facility with a Food Truck Challenge awarding cash prizes to the most popular truck. Fans will determine their favorites.

When it comes to sponsor activation, perhaps no other company has reached this level of activation in recent IndyCar history.

“It’s going to be a lesson on how to promote a race to other promoters out there, especially with a sponsor like Hy-Vee committing the resource, time, and effort to produce an event that will be unbelievable,” IndyCar owner Bobby Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winning driver, told me in an exclusive interview. “Bud Denker at Penske Entertainment has been so impressed dealing with them through commitment. They are going to make sure it’s a successful event not only for the state of Iowa and for the fans that will go there.

“They expect to sell it out with over 40,000 tickets. This will reflect the commitment Randy Edeker and the Hy-Vee people are making to the event.”

Edeker is the chairman and CEO of Hy-Vee and was looking for a way to expand Hy-Vee’s horizons beyond its current footprint. Two years ago, Hy-Vee was located in eight states in the Midwest.

Since then, Hy-Vee has entered three new markets – Birmingham, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, and Indianapolis.

It just so happens all three of those markets host the NTT IndyCar Series.

Edeker’s interest started by watching Formula One after he was intrigued by the Netflix documentary, “Drive to Survive.” The year after that series began, Formula One viewership increased 70 percent and 65 percent of that increase was the 18-35 demographic.

“We had a relationship with Bobby Rahal and that piqued my interest as I started looking at racing,” Edeker told me in an exclusive interview. “When Roger Penske bought Indy racing, I thought we would see a resurgence in Indy racing, and we are seeing that. If you look at some of the push of some of the events and how they are growing hard, that really piqued my interest.

“We had a car in the Indianapolis 500, and it went from there. We have a three-year deal around the car and the Iowa race grew from that.

“We want to promote our brand on a national basis through IndyCar racing.

“We have gone all in.”

Just two years ago in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Hy-Vee served as sponsor on Graham Rahal’s Honda in the second race of a doubleheader. Rahal finished third in that race, spoke highly of the company and Edeker liked the company’s first foray into high-speed racing.

“I met Randy and met the Hy-Vee people through a friend that does business with Hy-Vee,” Bobby Rahal said. “We were able to convince Hy-Vee to do a one-off on the Saturday night race at Iowa in 2020. I had not met Randy but had spoken to him. Graham had a good race and finished on the podium. Hy-Vee got a lot of coverage off that event and there was a lot of interest.”

Hy-Vee agreed to sponsor a third Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing entry in the 104^th Indianapolis 500 in 2020.

Last year, Hy-Vee sponsored Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing in 10 races. This year, the supermarket chain is a full-season sponsor on Jack Harvey’s No. 45 Honda.

While it has grown its relationship with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Graham Rahal told Penske and Denker that Edeker wondered why there were no races at Iowa Speedway.

Edeker took the next step when he took a call from Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds.

She was concerned about Iowa Speedway, a facility that was designed by former NASCSC
AAR
R Cup Series champion Rusty Wallace and was a great racing facility that opened with IndyCar in 2007. The original track owners, however, were unable to make it work financially and it was eventually sold by the Clement family to NASCAR in 2013.

Other than an ARCA race in 2019, NASCAR no longer hosted any series sanctioned events showed little interest in the future of the facility and chose not to schedule any races the 2019 season.

During the height of the COVID pandemic, IndyCar was challenged to put together a full schedule. Series owner Roger Penske and Penske Entertainment leased the track from NASCAR and served as the promoter of an IndyCar doubleheader in 2020.

After that, the facility was essentially closed.

“We had a call from the Governor of Iowa, and she challenged me to bring a race back to Newton, Iowa,” Edeker recalled. “It started around an interest to promote Hy-Vee. After that, it was around the growth strategy of IndyCar and if it was a good time to invest when it’s on the upswing. It’s a good opportunity for it. It’s surprising to some people that Hy-Vee has a full-time car, but it fits, it makes sense to us. The demographics are good, and we have seen the numbers come back last year with TV viewership and this year with good results, so it is on the upswing.

“We are all-in. We met with Roger Penske and were able to put a deal together to host a race there and do some good for this state.”

Between Penske, Denker and the staff at Penske Entertainment, combined with Edeker and his staff at Hy-Vee, they went to work to not only save the facility, but make it better than it has ever been.

“Roger and Bud Denker have been unbelievable partners,” Edeker said. “What we found at the Iowa Speedway was a track that was rundown, in disarray and needed repairs. Roger Penske has had his painting crew in Newton for months and months working on that track to improve it.

“It was really depleted.

“Our hope is our three years can grow and we can commit to making it a big event.

“When I first met with Roger Penske, he said to me what he dreams of for Iowa is to make it the Sturgis of Indy. That means it’s that rural race people will travel to and put on their schedule because of the complete event that we have put together.

“We put an enormous commitment out with entertainment. We have the biggest names we could get in entertainment because we want it to be a legacy event for Hy-Vee. That’s our dream. It’s our hope that the people that own the track will commit to keeping it up, keeping it fresh, that other events will come. I hope a NASCAR race will come back there, a Xfinity race. That’s my hope – I have nothing to do with that – but that’s my hope.

“For now, we are going to have two of the best short track Indy races on the entire lineup for this year.

“At Hy-Vee, we are not going to get involved unless we are all-in, and our people are all in and we have planned a big, big event.”

The excitement level for this event has been the talk of the state of Iowa. The largest crowd in the history of this event is expected for both Saturday and Sunday. Additional grandstands have been constructed.

Turn 1 features an impressive collection of temporary suites to keep up with the demand for corporate entertainment.

Mini Hy-Vee stores are being set up on the property to service the massive number of campers this weekend. It is well-stocked with essential such as ice and beer, but if someone wants a couple of 2-inch think Ribeye Steaks to throw on the grill, Hy-Vee can deliver to the camp site.

“We have some mini stores trying to sell and take care of customers,” Edeker said. “This is a huge camping race. And you can shop our aisles online and have groceries delivered to the track from our stores.

“If you want a 2-inch-thick Ribeye to throw on the grill, we can take care of them.”

Hy-Vee stores have also gone “all-in” on activation. Story employees wear Hy-Vee race shirts including cashiers and stockers.

Driver Jack Harvey is featured in a variety of life-size displays in the Hy-Vee aisles.

“It’s a lot bigger than our race here in Newton, Iowa,” Edeker said. “Across the eight states, it’s a way to help our stores activate and merchandise the stores in a way that is very organized with a central point. We have over 450 business units out there merchandising our stores. We have a lot of autonomy in our stores, the ability to change things and keep them in the same direction.

“Indy has allowed us to do that. In the summer, there is not a central point to organize our stores around. In Minneapolis and Kansas City, there are different baseball teams and all these differences.

“Indy goes across everything and gives us a central focus for our company, not to be an end all but to give everybody an organized plan to activate, especially through the summertime. Indy has been fantastic for that.

“Our stores have gotten behind it, devoted ourselves to it and help push it.”

The company’s strategy is to focus on larger stores with ecommerce while offering high-quality with value pricing.

“It’s a 155,000-square foot store with an automated ecommerce facility attached to it,” Edeker explained. “We are very focused on how we do ecommerce pickup and delivery out of those stories. In Indianapolis, if you were a company like Kroger, they would go in and have 30 or 40 stores in a market that size.

“We are not going to do that. We will have five locations in Indianapolis over the next five years. They will do a lot of volume and represent us well. It’s a different strategy than you would see in the grocery industry five years ago because the industry has evolved. That is our new store and our new strategy.

“That is what you are seeing us announced in Louisville, Kentucky and Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Then, we will go from there.

“I had somebody describe us as a company focused on upscale food and a Target on the other side. We are focused on quality. We want to have fantastic food. We want to have all some of the finer points. We are focused on Charcuterie and those things, but we are also focused on value and driving deals to the customers. Our private brands do that. We have done that in private marketing.

“We are focused on specially prepared foods but also on value. I don’t think there is a store like Hy-Vee. That is where I think we have a special niche and a good following because there isn’t anybody like us.”

Edeker is highly respected in the supermarket industry. He is currently the Chairman of the Food Marketing Institute, a trade association for the supermarket industry.

The grocery business is something that intrigued Edeker ever since he was a child growing up in a small Iowa town.

“I grew up on the street that Hy-Vee’s offices were at, at that time in Sheraton, Iowa,” Edeker said. “I grew up around Hy-Vee and started to work at Hy-Vee and move up.

“The rest is history, as they say. I was the lowest employee at the store. Before that, I worked at a little grocery story then at 18 went to work at Hy-Vee as a courtesy clerk.

“I did not go to college.”

Edeker is the pinnacle of success because he is a true businessman. But unlike most successful business people, he isn’t doing this for the “ROI” (return on investment.)

“There is no ROI for us,” Edeker said. “I can promise you that right now. We aren’t complaining about that. We see it as a marketing event to keep our name out there and for the state of Iowa. If you look at the people traveling here, staying and camping, that’s not all coming to Hy-Vee. We think there will be an ROI for the state of Iowa, and we are OK with that.

“It’s a tough time for our employees and for our customers with the economy, inflation, and prices. We see this event to bring some light into everybody’s day right now and we think it’s worthwhile. We think it’s a good investment to help Iowa.

“Our commitment is to Hy-Vee, then to the state of Iowa and beyond that, creating something that is a legacy event.

“I’m really proud of our program and our team. It’s going to be a first-class event.”