What would constitute the perfect IndyCar Series calendar? In the middle of the three-week Olympics break, it feels as good a time as any to think about it.
What we’ve already got is a great base to work from: IndyCar’s fine blend of ovals, natural terrain road courses and street tracks makes it stand out as the ultimate test for open-wheel racers in cars capable of over 800 horsepower.
The good news is that the shift to the FOX TV network from NBC means there won’t be Olympics or Tour de France concerns to worry the schedulers. But FOX’s American football-heavy sports programming means the season will have hard bookends from mid-February to September, which is fine.
The 2025 schedule is already set, so let’s look ahead to 2026 for our fantasy schedule.
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The Super Bowl is in early February, with NASCAR’s Daytona 500 the weekend after, so let’s shift up the season opener to an old IndyCar favorite, Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The good thing about that venue is that we can have midweek spring testing on its road course, leading into media content day in a fancy South Beach hotel, and then the season-opener on its 1.5-mile, variable-banking oval.
After a weekend off, we head across Alligator Alley to St Petersburg on the other coast of Florida for the first street race of the year. Then we take a southwestern turn, taking in another new event at Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez to satisfy Pato O’Ward’s legion of fans. We can then pop back across the border for a return to Texas Motor Speedway, to take advantage of an essential sports market.
While I was chatting to McLaren Racing’s CEO Zak Brown at Toronto, I asked him what we were missing in terms of key markets, and one of his ideas was this: “I think we need to dial-up being more of a tech sport, so that’s west coast, so I think Sonoma as well as Laguna Seca and Long Beach. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
So, let’s add Sonoma to the schedule as the first of a triple-header with Long Beach and Laguna. Add in some marketing around this ‘western swing’ and you just might get folks interested in attending all three of these classic tracks.
The mega Barber Motorsports Park keeps its spring date, but here’s another suggestion of Brown’s that I’m happy to include on my roster: “I’d love to see us in Denver. I think we need to get out of a few of the more rural markets, not all of them, to trade into bigger markets.”
Denver’s streets are no stranger to IndyCar, with CART racing there in 1990 and ’91, and then we enjoyed a five-year stint between 2002-’06. Let’s bring it back just ahead of the jewel in the crown, the Indianapolis 500, and who cares about the race on Indy’s road course that dilutes the majesty of the greatest oval race on the planet? Denver would be much more fun.
After such a run of races – we’re already at the midway point! – taking a toll on everyone involved in the sport, I’d grant a weekend off after Indy, before rolling through Detroit, St. Louis and Road America.
After a summer break, July would kick off with the fantastic Iowa weekend (hopefully with better racing thanks to a more weathered track surface) and then let’s make a double date out of IndyCar’s visit to Canada, pairing the brilliant Toronto street racing festival with a round at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
I ran this one past Will Power, and he replied: “I'm always pushing for Montreal and we used to go to Edmonton too. They were always great, great races for us. So, start working on Montreal guys, like, get us to that track! That is right where we need to be.”
Then let’s get back to America’s heartlands and rekindle the round at Watkins Glen, in beautiful upstate New York, to lend a little northeast flavor that the schedule is otherwise lacking. Then, after a round at Milwaukee’s historic oval, let’s bring back another crowd favorite – which Brown is amped about being revived…
“I’d love to see something like the Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland again, but under lights this time,” he said. “Can you imagine that on a Saturday night?
“The fans can see everything, it’s a fairly inexpensive structure to set up, and I’d rather see us there than at Mid-Ohio, with all due respect to the history we’ve had there.”
Adding an airfield runway layout would just be another string to IndyCar’s bow, and I always remember that FedEx plane between the corners! The wide-open turns always invited some ambitious lunges (who can forget Jacques Villeneuve vs Robby Gordon?) and super racing.
Then, for the season finale, hopefully, by late 2026 we can reinstate Nashville’s street track layout, including stretches on its famous Broadway strip. That would be a tremendous way to conclude the season and give everyone the excuse to party afterwards.
So there you have my ideal calendar, a 20-round championship featuring seven road courses, six ovals, six street events and one airport venue – with a nice variation across the season. Shown the exit door to make way for more interesting and relevant venues are Thermal, Indy’s road course, Mid-Ohio and Portland.
How about a Winter World Tour...
With an off-season that spans over five months, it leaves the door open for IndyCar to run some extra-curricular races. So why not take its show on a world tour?
An obvious place to start would be Japan. Title sponsor NTT Data is headquartered there, and engine supplier Honda just happens to own Motegi and Suzuka! Surely all it would take would be a logistics partner, like DHL, to pony up for the freight costs, and our show is on the road.
But where else? I asked Will Power for his thoughts on the topic and he replied: “We used to get a massive crowd in Brazil. That used to be a great place for us to go. When we used to go to Australia, we used to go to Japan, like all those places were big events.
“I don't know the financials behind it, if that's the reason we don't, or is it more of a TV thing? But I think they're kind of looking at that. I think they're always looking at different options.”
Having raced at an oval in Rio previously, IndyCar ran four races at a street track in Sao Paulo around the Anhembi Convention Center between 2010-’13. Portions of the circuit are now used by Formula E, and if it’s off the table then there’s always the option of racing at Interlagos.
But the track that gets an “Awww yeah!” response from Power is mention of Surfers Paradise. While the 2.7-mile street track that IndyCar used from 1991 to 2008 has been neutered to 1.8 miles, it would still provide an epic flyaway to crown a Winter World Tour champion.
Let’s hope, under the visionary legend that is Roger Penske and his team’s relationship with race promoters, IndyCar’s horizons can be broadened in years to come.
