Breaking Down The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series Schedule with Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles, and IndyCar President Doug Boles

Bruce Martin:
IndyCar fans, it's time to skirt your engines. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy, a production of Evergreen Podcast. I'm your host, Bruce Martin, a journalist who regularly covers the NTT IndyCar Series. Our goal at Pit Pass Indy is to give racing fans an insider's view of the exciting world of the NTT IndyCar Series in a fast-paced podcast featuring interviews with the biggest names in the sport. I bring nearly 40 years of experience covering IndyCar and NASCAR, working for such media brands as NBCSports.com, SI.com, ESPN SportsTicker, Sports Illustrated, AutoWeek, and SpeedSport. So let's drop the green flag on this episode of Pit Pass Indy. Welcome to Pit Pass Indy as we continue our fifth season of giving IndyCar fans an inside look at the most exciting form of racing on the planet, the NTT IndyCar Series. Although the 2025 IndyCar Series concluded with Team Penske's Josef Newgarden winning the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Super Speedway on August 31st, there are plenty more major storylines to cover an IndyCar in the early days of the off-season. The 2026 NTT IndyCar Series schedule was announced on September 16th, just after the most recent PitPass Indy was produced. It features a dramatic reshuffling of races, including a return to WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California as the season finale on September 6th, 2026. The past two seasons, the last race was held at Nashville Super Speedway, but the Nashville race will have its own special spotlight as it moves to Sunday night, July 19th, immediately following the 2026 World Cup Championship. Both events will be televised live on Fox, and the World Cup Championship is expected to be watched by more than 20 million viewers, giving the IndyCar race a huge lead-in to its telecast. It has the potential to be one of the most viewed IndyCar Series races in history. In the first year of a multi-year partnership with Fox Sports, viewership of the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series season was up 27% from the previous season, generating the fastest growth curve of any major sport. An average of 1.36 million viewers watched the 17 race schedule that led to the history-making championship of Alex Palou, the first three-peat series title winner in 14 years. The 2026 season gets off to a fast start. In the past, fans and competitors have complained of long gaps in the schedule to start the season. For the first time in the sports history, North America's premier open wheel series will compete on four dates during March, beginning with the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Sunday, March 1st. The 17-race schedule also features the Grand Prix of Arlington on March 15th and IndyCar's return to Phoenix International Raceway as the Saturday race of an IndyCar NASCAR weekend on March 7th. The IndyCar race weekend at the Milwaukee Mile will switch to a doubleheader format next season after a single race in 2025. It was also a doubleheader in 2024. To make room for the dramatic shuffling of the schedule, the season finale returns to WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California on September 6th. Another primetime telecast will be featured at Worldwide Technology Raceway near St. Louis on Sunday, June 7th. The popular race in Ontario switches from Exhibition Place in downtown Toronto to the northeast suburb of Markham, Ontario on August 16th. The biggest race on the schedule is the 110th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, set for Sunday, May 24, 2025, on Memorial Day weekend. Races that were rumored to be on the 2026 schedule, including a proposed race in Mexico City and a street race in Washington, D.C., are not on the final schedule released on September 16th. Dropped from the schedule is Iowa Speedway, which had a splashy return in 2022 thanks to heavy marketing and promotion from sponsor IV. The summertime combination of doubleheader races with major entertainment drew impressive crowds from 2022 to 2024. But when Hy-Vee dramatically scaled back its sports marketing budget and was no longer the title sponsor for the Iowa race, the IndyCar race weekend in 2025 had a major drop in ticket sales, leading IndyCar to leave it off the schedule in 2026. Also, IndyCar will not be returning to the Thermal Club near Palm Springs, California. For the second year in a row, all 17 races on the schedule will be televised on Fox. On today's Pit Pass Indy, the architects of the 2026 schedule, including Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles and IndyCar President Doug Bowles, break it down and give the backstory to some of the major movements on the schedule and why some potential races didn't make the cut. We'll start with Miles introducing the key changes to the schedule as IndyCar intends to continue its viewership growth from 2025, followed by comments from Bulls.

Mark Miles: Nielsen and friends that that's the largest year-over-year percentage increase of any sport that has an average of a million or more viewers. So we're very proud of that. It's real momentum and it's important to us. And equally important is that we continue that kind of momentum for next year. And the schedule is a big part of that drafting on 2025 into 2026. So look, for me, it's new markets. And I know Doug will talk about how we're going to start the year fast. But to be in Arlington and Phoenix at the beginning of the year, two markets that we're either new or returning to, is really, we think, a very important development. New partners.

Mark Miles: So whether it's the Cowboys or the Rangers or NASCAR, we're working with potent allies and partners to advance the the success of our events on the championships calendar next year. Primetime, Under the Lights. So you see on this calendar that we'll have two events, two ovals that will be in primetime and will be Under the Lights, which we know our fans love. We think it's a great way to show off the best of IndyCar racing. And the second of those, Nashville Under the Lights, will follow Fox's coverage of the World Cup final. That is expected to achieve 18 to 20 million viewers. Not all of them yet are hardcore IndyCar fans, but Fox will promote the fact right to an IndyCar race under the lights in Nashville. And we think that's a great opportunity for a serious audience for us and to get in front of a lot of new fans. So, very important. And then I think, again, the three races right out of the box starting March 1 is a key element that will propel the growth of the series through this calendar.

Bruce Martin: Congratulations on the schedule if both of you gentlemen could describe the genesis of how this whole Nashville World Cup situation played out. How was it approached? Was it an IndyCar idea? When did Fox get involved? Because it really does seem to have some pretty high potential for a good rating.

Mark Miles: I think it really started from our friends at Fox. You know, we got off to such a great start with their coverage of the Super Bowl, the beginning of this season. And they they don't have the Super Bowl in 2026, but they were the first to say, but we have the World Cup. They are the host of the World Cup from a media perspective in the US. And the finale is going to be huge. So they planted that seed. We worked with them on how would we take advantage of it? Because we had to look at the the three-hour window that Fox expects to dedicate to the World Cup coverage, and could we hit that and could we do it? It obviously would have to be 6 p.m. or later. Where could we do that? We love IndyCar racing on ovals under the lights, and so the two ideas came together. One way to do it would be in the evening, going into the night in Nashville. So I think it was their idea, And they're committed, as I said, to promoting with lots of tune-in, lots of IndyCar information during the World Cup to the World Cup audience. And then as quickly as they can, we'll transition into the race.

Bruce Martin: The other question is about Phoenix. In the past, we've had IndyCar and NASCAR doubleheaders at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And a lot of times you would have an IndyCar race group of fans that would come to the track. When that race was over, they might leave, the NASCAR fans would arrive. At Phoenix, it's going to be a mostly NASCAR crowd. So how do you engage them to be in the IndyCar for that race?

Doug Boles: Well, first of all, Phoenix, as I mentioned, has such history in IndyCar. Phoenix is an IndyCar community. So the fact that IndyCar is coming back to Phoenix, I think, is also going to help the NASCAR event on that Saturday. I think you'll see a lot of IndyCar fans who will come out and experience a NASCAR weekend because IndyCar is there. And you touched on it a little bit. Our hope is, just like when we ran NASCAR and IndyCar together here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, our hope is that we'll get NASCAR fans to understand why we love NTT IndyCar Series racing so much and the opportunity to race with them on that Saturday at that racetrack that's meant so much to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a community that is an IndyCar community. We have several of our former drivers, in fact, even live out there. I think it's going to be great for both NASCAR fans and IndyCar fans and our partners at NASCAR have been fantastic in terms of working this out so that it works for everybody. Logistically, when we run on the same weekend as NASCAR, just like we did here, it's a challenge because you're moving pit boxes in and out. You're trying to figure out where to garage things. And so it's taken an awful lot of work over the last several weeks from both the IndyCar upside and everybody at NASCAR to make it happen. But I think because we're both IndyCar and NASCAR so invested in it, I think you're going to find both of our series are doing everything we can to prop up motorsport here in the US. And it's a great way for us to kick off the season with our second race and, and obviously NASCAR at the beginning of their season and sharing our Fox broadcast partners. It just made a lot of sense for us to do that. And I think it'll benefit both NASCAR and IndyCar fans. I think transparently, we need to see how this one goes, not just from an overall attendance standpoint, but certainly from a logistical standpoint. I touched on a minute ago about the logistical challenges to do that. I think it's important for us to go back to Phoenix. As I said, it's a racetrack with a whole bunch of history here. I feel like it's going to be very successful. I think our NASCAR partners feel like it's going to be very successful. It's one that we'll take a look at as the You know, as we get through the race and see how things go again, the broadcast partner with Fox being both the NASCAR and IndyCar partner at that point in time is definitely a benefit. And for us, one of the things I love about our schedule is the almost identical mix between ovals, road course and street circus. So ovals are super important to our series and an oval like a Phoenix, if it's successful, will be one that we'd certainly consider making more than just a one year relationship with. Well, I think the seeds for the double header were planted in 2020 when we explored it for the first time here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And we enjoyed doing that. The NASCAR team enjoyed doing it. And we've always sort of been looking for where's the next place that we can do that double header that we had here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And really transparently, as we were talking through it, Roger and the team and I and Mark, we had a really great conversation with the folks at NASCAR, NASCAR Weekend here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And we really started from that point in time saying, let's really try and make this a priority. And that's really where it started. And then our Fox family obviously came in on the backside of that, but it really started with those continued conversations and then a more direct conversation around Brickyard Weekend here this summer.

Bruce Martin: Because of the numbers, you wanted to get 17, but we go back to doubleheader Milwaukee. What are the upsides to that?

Doug Boles: For those people that haven't been to the Milwaukee race the last two years, I encourage you to go. The racing, first of all, has been fantastic, but what's been more fun about going to Milwaukee is just the hardcore IndyCar fan who shows up at those races. As you walk through the grandstands, as you walk through the back of the grandstands where people are interacting with the vendors, it is definitely an IndyCar community. You see it in the shirts, you see it in the gear that they wear, you see it in how well they know our fans, or they know our participants, our drivers, our teams. It's just a great IndyCar market. It's one, again, of history, the one track in the U.S. that's got a little more history than the one where we are today at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But the racing's fantastic. I just think it made an awful lot of sense for this year to go back there. I know Milwaukee's looking forward to two races in a row, and I just think it's going to prove to be another great one, and I know the fans will turn out for those.

Bruce Martin: There had been some talk about a street race in Washington, D.C. What can you tell us about that potentially in future years?

Mark Miles: Well, I would say it's complicated to imagine having a street race in Washington, D.C. because of the obvious logistical and other considerations kind of along. But but again, frankly, this was an idea that I think maybe first surfaced from Fox. And so we've we've had meetings and discussions and impossible to handicap the probability of it happening, but it's intriguing and it would be an exciting development if there was a way to pull it off.I don't think a 2026 race in Washington, D.C. was ever feasible.

Mark Miles: It's just, you know, it's a temporary street circuit. You all know how much is involved in trying to make that work. Imagine trying to make that work in the nation's capital with less than a year's notice.

Mark Miles: have be an opportunity a little further down the line.

Bruce Martin: By switching Monterey back to the last race of the season, and moving the oval race at Nashville's Super Speedway in July, is a pivot away from what IndyCar attempted to do in 2024 and 2025. That was crown the IndyCar Series champion in the bustling, vibrant, entertainment area of Nashville. Instead, it moves back to the more upscale, but quieter area of California's Monterey Coast. Bowles and Miles explain the reasoning behind that decision.

Doug Boles: Well, from my perspective, and Mark may have a different answer to this, but from my perspective, that city is also a racing city. Monterey has been a racing city and part of the IndyCar season, even back into pre-1990s days. If you look at the way that things ended there, it's a great community that loves racing. It's a great place for our fans to go. It's one of the iconic US tracks. Our drivers enjoy that track, so I think it's a great place to close the season out and we're looking forward to doing that. We've done that in the past on our side, but like I said, you go back to some of the epic races that ended the seasons back in the 90s. It just really is a fitting place for us to to end the season in 2026. You know, as we look at the schedule, we are looking for opportunities to put our events in places where it really elevates them. And it's clear that moving Nashville, which is a fantastic event and our fans support, moving it into that window is an opportunity to really elevate the sport with some of the greatest racing there is. We're going to double down on our promotion for that event. We're going to do everything we can to make it more successful, which we believe we can this year. So I don't see a reason why our fans don't continue to come out and support it. The city of Nashville has been fantastic to this series over the last few years. Scott Borchetta working with us to promote it and working inside inside that community there. We just truly believe that this is the spot for that race. And it's also the spot where it's going to highlight the NTT IndyCar series. I'm one of the most what's turned out to be one of the better competitive races that we had this year. So all of those metrics to us. felt like a positive. Laguna Seca has history as our finale. It is a great place to go and see racing. It's an iconic American racetrack. It has a lot of the amenities that you think of when you think of wine country for those people that love to go to Sonoma. This is sort of the same look and feel. And I think the TV numbers for that race have historically been good too. So across the board, this felt like a win-win for us. And I really can't wait to see what fans turn out on July 19th and the television number that gets delivered on that day as well.

Mark Miles: Yeah, I think the intention is for it to be multi-year. The only thing I would add otherwise to Doug's comment is, maybe everybody is aware of this, but the leadership of the foundation that now operates the Laguna Seca facilities is, there's been some changes there and we think they're terrific people with real vision and ability to invest and we think that they will, they are going to be investing in the venue. So we're looking forward to taking advantage of that. And look, it's about the fans first, but it's also true that as you were saying, when you're talking about the wine country, Monterey is a place a lot of people want to be. And I think with, Management of the race now with Fox we can make it an incredible celebration of the year. It's a great place The Monterey Peninsula is iconic in and of itself in addition to the the importance of the Laguna Seca track So we think we can take that event as the finale to a whole new level We'll be right back to pit pass Indy after this short break and

Bruce Martin: Welcome back to Pit Pass Indy. Entering the late stages of the season, it appeared that Mexico City would be part of the 2026 IndyCar Series schedule. But with the World Cup also being contested in Mexico City, as well as other venues in North America, that became a major conflict to finding the right date for IndyCar to compete in Mexico.

Mark Miles: Well, we worked hard at it. We really regret that we aren't there in 26. We were quite close to getting that done. I think we've made this clear, the World Cup and its effect on the economy, the business environment in that summer and next year. really caused us to be more cautious. We're gonna stay on it. I'll be in Mexico in the next month, and we will be dealing with the people at OSESA and CIA, and looking for the opportunity, and we wanna be back there as soon as we can. Well, another level of detail, months ago, in the beginning of the conversations, our focus was on an April date. And we thought that was feasible. We then signed an agreement with the prospective promoter. Then we learned at the beginning of June that the date was no longer available at the track and the track is that that's the place we want to race. And the alternative dates were where we were looking at, which was July 26th or a couple of the next weeks in August, right after the World Cup. It's not that there's a head to head scheduling conflict. It's that if you're trying to cut through in a large city like Mexico City and make sure that the fans there know we're coming.

Mark Miles: The World Cup is difficult to get through from a communications point of view. And commercially, huge amounts of money were invested by the kinds of companies that we want to buy suites and sponsorships and to be commercially engaged with our race. And therefore difficult to know that we would have the kind of support that we would otherwise have. when we made the decision just before Nashville that it was the prudent thing to do. We care about being in Mexico. Everybody we've dealt with there believes we'll have a phenomenal event when we get there, but we want to do it right.

Bruce Martin: Miles also strongly pushed back on the notion that Live Nation, part of Liberty Media, changed terms of a potential agreement to bring IndyCar to Mexico City. Liberty Media also owns the Formula One World Championship.

Mark Miles: I've read that theory. It's rubbish.

Mark Miles: Live Nation already had a majority holding in the company. They went from, I think, 52 percent to 70-ish percent. They are supporters of having the event there. And we're dealing directly with the management of the track and the promoter arm of the track. And they are big

Bruce Martin: In past seasons, the start of the IndyCar Series schedule had two or three weekends off between races before kicking into high gear during the month of May at the Indianapolis 500. That will change in 2025 as IndyCar has four races in the first five weekends of its schedule, including consecutive races at St. Petersburg on March 1st, Phoenix on March 7th, and the IndyCar Grand Prix of Arlington on March 15th. After a weekend off, IndyCar concludes the month of March at Barber Motorsports Park on March 29th. Bowles explains IndyCar's fast start to 2026.

Doug Boles: Yeah, I think we're looking forward to that.

Doug Boles: The fast start is we're sort of calling it right now. But what's important about that is it really allows us to have three great events early on a week off and we'll go to barber. It's a great way really to get the momentum going. I think part of our challenge this year in 2025 with the, just the gaps in between the start and when we kept the momentum going, St. Pete's always a fantastic race. So it's a great place to start. A lot of people there. The weather's always good. Just the town and the city really embraces the NTT IndyCar Series. It's a great way to kick things off. Phoenix has so much history with the IndyCar Series. It's a place that A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, some of our icons cut their teeth on and became really successful there. So being able to go back there as part of the NASCAR weekend, we're looking forward to that. We think that'll be a great one. Sharing Fox in that window with With NASCAR, helped them make a whole lot of sense for us to get back to Phoenix, which will be a fantastic run. And then we've talked for two years almost now about Arlington. And every day we learn something new about how much better that event's going to be, how exciting that event's going to be. The Cowboys, the Rangers are completely committed to it. Our ticket sales, our suite sales, everything is far exceeding our expectations. It's in a city that knows how to celebrate. So those three weekends together, it's really going to be a great way to kick things off as, as we lead into the rest of the NTT IndyCar Series season. And then even, so we do Barbara at the end of March, Long Beach. obviously is now part of the Penske Entertainment Group and the investments that have been made in the Long Beach experience is going to be something that our fans notice. So as you lead into May, I think that entire spring season is going to be one that is great for the fans that attend, but I think it's also going to help us continue to drive eyeballs to continue to see the numbers that we saw increase this year increase again next year on our Fox broadcast.

Bruce Martin: Bowles also expects IndyCar to have a pre-season test at Phoenix before the race weekend and revealed the IndyCar race is scheduled before the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Phoenix as both will be held on the same day on March 7th.

Doug Boles: Yeah, obviously, we haven't been there since 2018.

Doug Boles: So we will need to do some testing there. So our partners at Firestone will do a tire test down there to make sure that we take the most competitive tire we can to the event. We're considering some sort of open test, really, where you bring the whole field there to test. And that'll be figured out here, I think, in the next few weeks. as it relates to how we test and how we get ready. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the teams individually take some of their own individual test days and test there. And right now we're still trying to figure out the exact timing. It likely is before the Xfinity race, sort of in the evening or the beginning of the evening East Coast time.

Bruce Martin: Once again, a part of the country that won't host an IndyCar Series race in 2026 is the eastern United States. Does IndyCar have plans on moving into newer or different markets?

Bruce Martin: Mark Miles explains.

Mark Miles: Definitely, the East Coast, Mid-Atlantic is a priority. We'd like to be there. We'd like to have more in something in the West. And how you get there is just hard work and turning over a lot of stones and talking to prospective partners that are well-suited to help put on an event. So it takes time and work, as I said, Maybe we get to some kind of a rhythm where we have two or three new races along those lines over the next few years. But it is a focal point for us and the East is a priority.

Bruce Martin: Does IndyCar have plans on moving into newer or different markets?

Mark Miles: We've talked about how we're looking to add new mega events in hot metropolitan areas. Mexico would be one of those. Denver would be one of those. There are others where we already are engaged in conversations and how it'll all shake out and when remains to be seen. But we hope to have a steady sequence of adding one or two or three of those kinds of events and those kinds of markets

Bruce Martin: One solution could have been a return to a storied facility such as Watkins Glen International in western New York, but Miles explained why that hasn't happened.

Mark Miles: I'll take it. I've talked about it before. We love Watkins Glen. I think that was just there a week or two ago. Phenomenal place, historic, great racing for us, I think. But our focus, as we've said a couple of times already, is on trying to get to major, hot urban markets. That helps us get younger, It helps us be more relevant nationally as we try to grow the number of fans that become that are added to our current number of IndyCar fans.

Bruce Martin: IndyCar remains committed to keeping the schedule at 17 races. Miles explains why that number works best for the series, its teams, sponsors and television.

Mark Miles: But we still like 17 we've talked about it recently, if the goal is really not as much about the number is it is about having compelling highest quality events, so that the indycar championship is compelling. to fans and to commercial interests. So we'll see how many we end up with. That'll evolve probably over time. But the emphasis will be on something like 17 and on continually moving the needles so that our events, wherever they are, however many they are, are the highest quality.

Bruce Martin: Finally, IndyCar and Fox Sports recently completed a very successful initial season together. Hopes are high of seeing that relationship grow more in the future in terms of promotion and marketing. Miles also discusses why it is important for IndyCar and Fox to conclude the season the week before the National Football League begins its regular season. That means a Labor Day finale for IndyCar.

Mark Miles: As I mentioned earlier, in some ways they see their broadcast of so many World Cup events as different timing, right, but as another high-level, high-profile opportunity to promote us. But this requires no convincing.Fox is so invested, literally and otherwise, and so eager to continue to do all they can to help us grow, sustaining the remarkable promotional work they did last year. They're already working on commercials. And I think you'll see that you look at Fox Sports, they have lots and lots of opportunities to promote IndyCar racing. On that last point, there's a clear consensus that we don't need to be expanding the end of our season into that part of the IndyCar season. Earlier might be another question if we had good options to start the season a bit earlier. They're with us at a table like this one often in focused discussions to think about all the things we can do to become a much more potent marketing organization for IndyCar and to grow the series. And there'll be more conversation about what that's going to mean in coming weeks, but it's everything that you will be able to think of to help continue to grow and take advantage of the momentum that we already have because of the success of this year. We want to propel forward, use the success of 2025, and create even greater momentum going forward.

Bruce Martin: That puts a checkered flag on this edition of Pit Pass Indy. We want to thank our guest, Penske Entertainment CEO and President Mark Miles. and IndyCar President Doug Bowles for breaking down the 2025 NTT IndyCar Series schedule on today's Pit Pass Indy. Along with loyal listeners like you, our guests helped make Pit Pass Indy your path to victory lane in IndyCar. For more IndyCar coverage, follow me at X, previously known as Twitter, at BruceMartin, one word, uppercase B, uppercase M, underscore 500. This has been a production of Evergreen Podcast. A special thanks to our production team. Executive producers are Bridget Coyne and Gerardo Orlando. Recordings and edits were done by me, Bruce Martin, and final mixing was done by Sean Rule Hoffman and Nathan Corson. Learn more at evergreenpodcast.com. Until next time, be sure to keep it out of the wall.