Episode 241: Doug Boles, President of INDYCAR

The automobile is one of the most important inventions that revolutionize the modern world.

In America, the rich history of car culture runs deep as technology continues to shape the future of the industry.

Jason Stein is here to share the stories of people passionate about cars from industry leaders and innovators to car-obsessed celebrities.

Buckle up as Jason takes you inside the boardroom, onto the track and around the bend on Cars and Culture on SiriusXM Business Radio.

We welcome you into episode 241 of Cars and Culture with Jason Stein here on SiriusXM Business Channel 132.

Great to have you along for the ride again this week.

Today's conversation sits at the intersection of leadership, controversy and the future of American open-wheel racing.

IndyCar enters a pivotal moment as the season begins this weekend on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida.

A symbolic reset after a turbulent first year for its new president, Doug Bowles.

Doug Bowles not only is president of IndyCar, he's also the head of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

He's a lifelong racing insider who has spent decades shaping the business and spectacle of motorsports.

He stepped into the IndyCar presidency during one of the series' most scrutinized periods,

navigating last year's officiating controversy, competitive integrity debates

and the broader questions around governance, transparency and fan trust.

It was a trial-by-fire first season. It forced quick decisions, steady messaging

and a renewed focus on credibility at the highest levels of the sport.

Now, as he begins year two, the focus shifts from response to momentum, strengthening competition,

elevating the fan experience and positioning IndyCar for long-term growth in a crowded global motorsports landscape.

Today, we talk about what he learned from the firestorm of his first season,

how the series worked to clean up the mess and restore confidence

and why the St. Petersburg Opener represents more than just the first green flag of the year.

It's a statement about where IndyCar is headed next.

We'll also discuss the balance between tradition and innovation,

the commercial realities of running a modern racing series

and how IndyCar plans to build on its unique mix of accessibility, speed and authenticity

to capture the next generation of fans.

That's all ahead on Cars and Culture with Doug Bowles.

Hi, I'm Doug Bowles and this is Cars and Culture with Jason Stein.

We're on the eve of a new season.

We're on the eve of many changes that have been implemented in the offseason that you'll start to see.

He is a leader guiding the series through a critical reset and long-term strategic evolution.

And he's just a great guy. Good to have you on the program, Doug.

I'm happy to be here. It's the seasons right around the corner. It's hard to believe.

It's also hard to believe you've been, what, a little more than a year in both positions now?

I was looking at it and I thought, gosh, he's passed a one-year anniversary.

Yeah, I think my one-year anniversary was last week, so about 10 days before the kickoff of the season this year.

So it's been a bit of a whirlwind.

There's my first offseason with two jobs and we've had a lot of things to do in this last offseason.

But it is definitely a juggling act trying to keep up with the two jobs.

Yeah, I was just going to ask you that. When you reflect back on the 12 months and we'll get into some of it.

But when you think about the first year, I'm not sure you could have had a more dynamic first year.

But you tell me.

Yeah, there were definitely some challenges and some moments that have been unique in my career.

But it's, I think the one thing that I learned more than anything is at the Speedway side,

we're all really passionate about the Indy 500 and the events we have there,

the history, the tradition of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

And the constituency didn't matter who it was, whether it was our partners, our fans, our teams, our drivers.

We all sort of were going in the same direction and it was pretty easy to guide the ship.

We had our challenges, but nothing terribly in the way.

The difference with the IndyCar series is you've got a bunch of those passionate people and we're all trying to go in the same direction.

But each constituency might want to go 10 degrees different than the other,

which means when you look at seven or eight constituencies, you might have one 90 degrees and where somebody else was going.

So just really trying to balance everybody's expectations and what they wanted out of their involvement in the IndyCar series

in a way that we still were going forward was maybe the biggest surprise for me just trying to keep everybody trying to go in the same direction.

What did you learn during that?

I learned that our folks are passionate, but they're also pretty dug in on their ideas and where they want to go

and the importance of just continuing to communicate, listen to people, talk to people,

really have to outline why you want to go in certain directions, why you can't do certain things

instead of just saying yes or no, it just has been really helpful to explain why.

And most of the time when you sit down and explain the challenges of something,

you know, you get everybody kind of on board, but it's been an awful lot just to keep that communication,

those lines of communication open with everybody and take everybody's thoughts and ideas and hopes into consideration

and even if we went a different direction, making sure they understood why.

You've got to be the world's biggest diplomat, don't you?

It is a little bit of a political job, that's for sure, and you really do have to be thoughtful in the way that you approach things

and you can quickly understand that, hey, if we're going to make this decision,

here's the people or the organizations or the companies that are going to be on the other side of that decision

and how do you work with them to let them know why we're doing things moving forward.

And as I said, everybody is super passionate about the sport and about competing in the sport,

and that they all have their ideas and it could be some really challenging conversations for sure.

Well, you are overseeing the world's most iconic venue.

That's got to, in some way, borrowing from what you just said.

It has to shape also how you lead a championship, a pursuit of a championship, a league as a whole, right?

Yeah, for sure.

Boring on the icon to blend to the other.

For sure. You think about the Indianapolis 500. This will be the 110th time we've raced the Indy 500 this May 24th

and so much of our sport is built on the reputation and the history and the foundation that is the Indianapolis 500.

So that bleeds across all of our decisions and the whole series.

It is, like I said, it's the foundation that holds the series up.

The challenge we have is when you compete in 16 other races of the 17 we run at 18 this year,

15 or 16 of those are outside of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

So really trying to say, OK, the 500 is our foundations and important, but we can't let that really be the umbrella that defines everything.

We have to find a way to build the sport.

So as you start thinking about how are you having conversations with people, you use that as sort of the baseline,

but then you have to be able to show people we're trying to grow the whole sport,

which means sometimes you're making decisions that are different.

Sometimes you don't want to mention that you have an Indianapolis Motor Speedway hat to wear when you're talking to somebody.

They want to know that what you're thinking about first is the entire series

and how you grow in an entire championship, not just one event.

So I've had to do a little bit of a reset in the way that I approach things.

Previous to this in my 13 or 14 years in this job at the Speedway,

it was really all about promote the Indian 500 first,

talk about the IndyCar series, but really promote the Indian 500,

and then the Brickyard 400 and the other events to go on the Speedway.

So I have had to change a little bit the way that I'm out front now as the series guy,

not just the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indian 500 guy.

And then you were tossed all kinds of interesting twists and turns.

You know, it included a controversy that challenged confidence,

maybe an oversight in governance.

From your perspective, what specifically needed to be fixed inside the organization?

Well, specific to when you think about the governance of the sports,

specific to that, I mean, the first thing needed to be some real transparency

in the way that we tacked our cars.

Not so much the way we tacked them because we had good team

and they actually do a pretty good job of tacking.

But in the way that we communicated violations,

when we communicated to teams the expectations when they roll through tech

and some consistency across the board in that,

and then in the way that we officiated racing,

we needed to communicate and have consistency

because there was this wide gap in terms of consistency

on something that might look like one thing at one event,

two or three events later, the same kind of idea

and you would get a completely different result.

So just that consistency across the board was really important.

And then being transparent in the way that we set out our rulings,

but also when we missed something, we got to be transparent.

But it's like every other sport.

The referees are human.

They're going to make mistakes.

They're going to miss things.

But we have to own it instead of try and say,

well, we didn't miss that.

Here's why we ruled it a certain way.

So we also learned, I think, looking at things that we did not have enough people.

I mean, there's some things we can get better.

When we went through May and the challenges in May

and the attenuator issue that really brought a lot of this to light,

the biggest thing for me that is hard to explain to somebody,

we have a very limited amount of time that you can tech all cars

when you get to venues and then get them on track

and then tech them afterwards at the end of the race,

which every series does.

You take those to make sure nobody's made changes

since they've rolled through tech before the event.

The biggest challenge we really had was making sure that people understood

what we were teching and why we were teching things.

We were focused on the things that make the biggest impact

and performance on the track.

There's a thousand plus components in these cars.

If you had to tech everything, you'd never get it done.

So trying to understand if we were paying attention to the right things

and then making sure we had enough people to take that.

We really pay attention to the things that were super critical to the performance,

but then how do we start filtering that down?

Those are the things that from that standpoint

that I think have been the biggest challenge.

And then overall, just the optics of having a series

or an event that is owned by the same group

that actually owns a car that competes in the series

became a challenge.

And for as much as I can stand here and look at that

and say that I never once have had a call from anybody at Team Penske

that said, hey, our boss owns the team and the series and the races,

you need to make sure you rule X, Y, or Z,

including from Roger's, I've never once talked to him about that.

It still was the right thing to do this independent officiating board

that we've just announced in December

that we'll begin to solve some of the challenges that we've had over the last year.

So definitely was an interesting year.

Well said.

Was the issue more about process clarity or organizational structure?

It's probably more process clarity in the grander scheme of things.

But we also need the people.

We need more people.

We need to have more defined ideas behind if this is this violation

then this is how we need to handle it.

And I think the independent officiating board is one of the first things

we talked to them about was consistency, clarity,

making sure that we've got the right people.

They know the processes as we go forward.

But it really just comes down to solving the process

and making sure that people know what we expect of them

or what the officiating board expects with them with respect to the rules

when they roll through tech.

And then we'll just kind of go from there.

But when we have issues, especially when you have an issue

like the attenuator situation on qualifying Sunday at this,

or I guess qualifying, yeah, it was qualifying Saturday or Sunday

at the Speedway, you know, those,

especially when it plays out on national television,

that was a critical moment where,

and we had been talking about independent officiating

even six months before I took this job,

it was the one moment, I think, where we all realized

that we have to get to independent officiating

because while the attenuator did not fall inside the rules

of the IndyCar rulebook, it really didn't have a performance impact.

There are a lot of things that didn't happen,

that it didn't impact as much as it seemed like

when it played out on TV.

But the fact that there was that optics challenge

made it that much worse and we needed to work through that.

So I think that was the point at which time we realized

that this exploration of independent officiating

needed to be more than exploration.

It needed to be a definitive time that we said,

look, we, Pinsky Entertainment IndyCar Series

is going to get out of the officiating of the rules.

We're still going to write them,

but we're not going to officiate them.

Well, and trust is the currency of any sports league

or series, isn't it?

Yeah, for sure.

How do you approach rebuilding trust simultaneously

to go back to the first thing you said

with team owners, drivers, partners and fans?

Yeah, it does become a trust issue for sure.

I think, you know, the first thing we did was,

you know, I literally stayed up all night the night that this happened.

We had held at one of those impromptu stand outside the trailer,

you know, press scrums where we said,

look, at this point in time,

our rule book basically allows us to take the two cars

that were in violation and they'll start 11th and 12th.

They were in the fast 12.

I guess we could have thrown somebody out of the entire race,

but we didn't feel like that was the right thing

to do at that point in time.

But that evening, you know, I literally stayed up all night.

They're going to figure out this doesn't feel like it allows our fans

to realize that integrity is sport and the event is important,

our team owners.

And so the next morning, you know, I was sitting,

this is one of those moments that you just will never forget.

I've been up all night.

I was in the office.

I kind of had an idea what I thought the direction should be

where we should go.

I called Mark Miles as the president of Pinsky Entertainment

said, hey, I've been thinking tonight.

He came in the office, sat down with me,

chatted through kind of the thoughts.

And I said, I need a coffee.

And I got in the car and drove down Main Street.

You know, it's a half a block from our admin office there at the Speedway

and was sitting outside a little place called Founders Grounds,

which is a local coffee shop named after the four founders,

the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

And I just called Roger and he answered the phone.

And I said, hey, I've been thinking,

here's what we're going to do today.

We're going to have a press conference,

sort of reset and explain the things that had happened yesterday.

And then we're going to make an adjustment to the starting of the race.

And we're going to pull the two cars that you have in there

and start 33rd and 32nd instead of 11th and 12th.

And it was that one opportunity where you're like,

oh man, I don't know how this conversation is going to go.

And it was silence on the phone for one or two seconds,

and it probably seemed like 10 minutes to me.

And he said, I completely understand, Doug.

I appreciate you doing what's best for the series.

And this is totally your decision.

I appreciate it.

You just decide what you want to do and I will accept it.

And it was one of those opportunities where he very could have easily said,

hey, you work for me.

And he never even indicated, there's never even 5% of that.

And that just to me says an awful lot about who he is and what he is

and why I appreciate working for him.

And then we had that press conference.

And that was the beginning, I think, of saying, look,

the integrity of our race is super important.

We don't want anybody to question it.

So we're going to take one step even further.

And it was in that meeting where we said, look,

and we will have independent officiating by the time we start

the 2026 IndyCar season.

And it's going to take time, like everything.

It takes time to get everybody back on board.

And I hope folks give us an opportunity to let this independent officiating

board work through it and see how that goes.

And then the next thing that we did is we held an owner's meeting.

That day we did the owner's meeting without Roger to walk

through how things have transpired to get their sense.

And then we had an owner's meeting with Roger.

And Roger was great.

He talked to the teams.

And I think those are the things where, you know,

the beginning of how you reset is just accept what's happened,

be transparent, be open to have conversations,

and show that you're making steps to make it better.

Mike Schenck said that he obviously was involved

in those conversations, was in the room.

And he sort of described it as the bottom of the roller

coaster for IndyCar, that at that point it had bottomed out

and it was on its way up.

So let's look at where we are today.

After the period of review and recalibration,

how do you describe the current health of IndyCar?

Maybe competitively, commercially,

maybe most importantly, Doug, culturally.

Yeah.

You know, I've been fortunate really to work in this sport

since the fall of 1997.

And we've gone through a whole bunch of seasons

where part of the Indy Racing League in 1997

and we were a glorified, short track race series

in the US trying to become what it once was,

the IndyCar series.

And seeing all kinds of ups and downs

and all these moments of growth,

when several of the CART teams started competing

in the Indy Racing League in the early 2000,

when unification happens in 2008, in 2011,

when it's the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis Motor

Speedway in 2012 with the new cars,

there's been these opportunities where we've seen

the growth of the sport.

But I think in the last 24 months,

well, let's back out.

I mean, go to December 2023 when Honda basically,

they didn't completely say it,

but there was a full-on indication that Honda

probably doesn't stay.

At the end of the current term, which is the end of 2026,

Honda goes, we've struggled to get

an additional manufacturer over the last 12, 13 years

for a variety of reasons,

mostly because a manufacturer isn't going to spend

a bunch of money to start in a series

where the two incumbent manufacturers have been

spending that kind of money for over a decade.

It just doesn't make sense.

And then we start to get some momentum with Fox.

So last year, the Fox momentum was really, really fantastic.

The investment they made in our drivers,

in our sport, in our events has been really helpful.

The addition to Fox people to the board of our company

that bring in not just racers,

but bring in somebody that has this whole

marketing background that maybe is probably

the weakest link that we've had across the years.

So I think we're better set up to grow this sport

than we've ever been, certainly since 1996.

And I think for the most part, you have teams,

drivers, fans, partners, promoters,

all of us sort of on the same page

that we got to move this thing forward

and let's all work together to do that.

We have those moments where we disagree,

but for the most part, I've never felt this entire community,

this entire paddock, working together

and taking advantage of what was a fantastic year last year.

So that's all to say that I think the momentum's there.

The racing product is certainly there.

The culture, just having everybody together,

thinking through how do we make steps

that maybe oftentimes we get focused on,

what's good for me as a team or me as a driver

or me as a promoter.

Now we think about what's good for everybody

because if we can grow this thing together,

it's going to be better.

So this is an important year for us.

To me, it's a little challenging

because we had such a good year last year,

we got to make sure that it keeps going.

But I don't think I've, in my time in the sport,

I don't think I've been as excited about the opportunity

as we have in 2026 and going forward

than we have right now.

Long-term, long horizon strategy.

You've talked about the importance of a disciplined road map,

a long-term road map rather than short-term reactive decisions.

You certainly spent 12 months on the reactive decisions.

So in year two now, what are the foundational pillars

that you think about when you think about IndyCars?

Let's say the next five years.

Well, it's funny you say that because I think my strength

is really more in the promoting and growing the sport,

growing the events, building the brand.

And I spent most of last year worrying about, you know,

the inside baseball stuff.

And that to me is maybe my biggest disappointment in last year

is that I didn't have the opportunity

to really focus on how do we grow the sport.

We had a lot of conversations about it,

but it was almost an afterthought

behind all the other challenges that we worked through.

Fortunately, we had, you know,

Fox working really, really hard on the TV side

was continuing to keep that momentum going.

So certainly I'm hoping that, you know,

that this year we can pivot to more focus

on how do we continue to grow the sport,

getting the announcement a few weeks ago

that both Han and Chevy are on board through,

it's a four-year agreement through 2030.

That's huge for our sport.

I spent much of last year in meeting after meeting after meeting,

trying to get to that point

where we could make that announcement.

So that's a great foundation for us to now begin

to go back out one more time.

And we've got several potential OEMs

that could come in as that third one.

Now, will it get done? I don't know.

We got a lot of work to do,

just like we had to get Chevy and Han on board,

but that's certainly something that we'll work on

in the offseason.

Making our events or our races events,

not just races, we have a handful of them right now

that are fantastic events.

So we kick things off at St. Petersburg this weekend,

which is a great way to kick things off.

Our Arlington race, I think,

is one of those events where people that come,

it's more than just the on-track product,

obviously the Indy 500 Long Beach.

We got to continue to build events.

So looking at our schedule,

where can those events be?

How do we elevate them so that they're more than just races?

And then really important,

and Fox has helped us do this,

but we have to get our drivers

and our product

outside of the motorsport niche.

We need to find ways,

Formula One's done a great job of it

and how do we find ways to get

our product and our drivers

more accessible and known

beyond our hardcore race van.

And those are the things that we have to get working on

this year and I think over the next three years

and see some significant growth

in those areas, and that'll be a big focus this year.

All right, you hit on two things

I want to follow up on.

The third manufacturer,

you've really discussed the importance of potentially bringing in

a third-age manufacturer,

but how critical is that objective

to strengthening maybe the competitive

and the commercial ecosystem

for IndyCar?

I think from a...

it's probably more important from the commercial

ecosystem than the competitive ecosystem.

I think we would be fine

from a competition side

if we had just one manufacturer.

We don't want that and that's why we have two.

And actually adding a third

I think might make it marginally

better. I think it makes it

it's another storyline

to talk about, but I really think

from the commercial standpoint is where we have that opportunity

when you start to see

another manufacturer say we believe

in the direction of the IndyCar series,

we believe in the opportunity the IndyCar series provides

us to talk about our product

and to drive sales and to drive awareness.

I mean those are

that to me is more important

than the competition side.

It also, if I'm Chevy and Honda

I'm happy that we've got

the two together, but if you add a third manufacturer

it means that Chevy and Honda

now aren't covering

half the field, so there's value to them

to have another partner

in the series. But I think

the biggest place for us is really the commercial

aspect to having one more manufacturer

who's in a series

talking about our series, but more importantly

has sort of signed off and said, hey, we believe

in the growth trajectory of where the IndyCar series

is going enough that we've invested in it.

After the break I'll continue my conversation

with Doug Bowles, president of IndyCar

and also head of the Indianapolis

Motor Speedway. To see more

Cars and Culture interviews visit the Cars and Culture

YouTube channel. Subscribe, comment

check out hundreds of conversations with the

creators, collectors and culture makers

who are driving the industry forward.

The automobile is one of the most important

inventions that revolutionize the modern

world. In America the rich history

of car culture runs deep. Technology

continues to shape the future of the

industry. Jason Stein is here to

share the stories of people passionate about

cars from industry leaders and innovators

to car obsessed celebrities.

Buckle up as Jason takes you inside

the boardroom onto the track and around

the bend on Cars and Culture

on SiriusXM Business Radio.

Welcome back to Cars and Culture

here on SiriusXM Business Channel 132.

I'm your host, Jason Stein.

Now the continuation of my conversation

with Doug Bowles, president of IndyCar

and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

To see more Cars and Culture interviews

at the Cars and Culture YouTube channel.

Subscribe, comment and check out hundreds

of conversations with the creators, collectors

and culture makers who are driving

the industry forward. On schedule

and I know that

there's constant discussion about

new venues, market expansion

you mentioned a couple of them.

Is geographic balance

as increasingly

important as

maybe the strategic growth of the

sport? In other words,

are you trying to

evaluate whether a market

is sustainable for long term

and if the market's right, then IndyCar

is going to be right.

Yeah, I think one of the things, you know, there are a bunch of race tracks

where we don't run that we could run.

But we want to make

sure, first of all, that we're going somewhere

where we're going to create

that atmosphere, that feeling.

Balance is important. We're obviously

strong, always have been in the history of our sport

in the Midwest.

We've got a couple of great events

out west.

We're lacking in terms

of the Northeast. Obviously we've got the

Washington D.C. event this year, which I think

is a

a lot of great opportunity for us for a lot of

reasons, not just

the fact that it's the

250th anniversary of our country, but in the

Northeast where we need to be, but we need to find a permanent

home in the Northeast. We need to find that place

where fans know

that they can see the

IndyCar series in the Northeast. So that's

important. And then we continue to look

at are there ways to add

something

between, call it Gateway

and Long Beach and Laguna.

What can we add in that

space? Texas does a little

bit of that. It's a little

far south.

And then the Phoenix experiment

this year, going back to a track

that has tons and tons of IndyCar history,

really, and partnering with

NASCAR. In fact, we're doing that the first two

weekends of our series this

weekend with the trucks at

St. Petersburg and then

go into Phoenix and run on

Cup Weekend there.

Balance is important

and geographic balance is important

for us in trying to

solve that. But

not just go to a racetrack because it's available,

but go to a racetrack because

we think it's sustainable there long-term.

You want to watch over-scheduling.

Obviously, you don't want to dilute

team resources, fan engagement

as an example. But you also

need to maintain momentum

while not over

without overextending the championship

to some extent. I mean, this is what

every league is dealing with right now. We hear

it in the NFL in the, you know, potential 18

weeks. We hear it with Formula One. We hear

it all over the place. So

that formula is a tricky one

to try to balance, right, Doug? Finding

that exact sweet spot.

And this is kind of goes back to our first

conversation about

how do you balance all of the

constituencies

and what people want. And while

on the surface, the

fan in me says, well, man, you could go to Richmond,

you could go to Watkins Glen. I mean, there's a whole bunch of places.

You could just start listing off these races where

you could go.

But there's a lot of reasons before you can just

do that.

You have to work through, like I said, you want to

make sure when you go there it's going to be an event.

You want to make sure that when you go there

financially it makes sense for the league as well

as for the team. So that's a piece of it

trying to figure out how to

make that work. I mean, the teams aren't running

for nothing, right? They have sponsorship dollars, but we're

also, as a league, paying

teams to be part of our league. So that, you

know, you have to think about how that works.

Looking at the schedule, the travel, you know, going

from one place to another. This year, in fact,

you know, the Washington D.C. race is an

opportunity that we felt like you can't

pass up. You have to make happen, but

it also comes with a little bit of pain,

or a lot of pain for our teams who will

go from Portland to

you know, on one side of the country

you're going to go to

you're going to go to Markham in Canada, then

you're going to go to D.C. and then you're going to go all the way back out

to Laguna to close the season.

And those become challenging

conversations. It's tough on people,

it's tough on resources. So

when you start looking at all these things

there are a whole bunch of check marks

that you have to make before you can say, okay,

this is the right venue for us.

So that's why it isn't as simple.

We've historically said

we're a 17-race series in the last

call it six or seven months.

We've decided that if it's the right event

I think we're okay with

obviously this year we're doing 18, but

you know, if you were in 1920 races, but I think

it falls somewhere between 17 and 20,

but we're not just adding races to add

races. You have to add races at our events

and are additive to

the overall, you know, plan of growing

the sport. A few more

things in the final 10 minutes here. IndyCar

has a deeply loyal fan base

but expanding that audience

really, I mean, it has to be one of

your key priorities. What strategies

are most important to reaching

new fans? Maybe without losing that

authenticity and

I guess storytelling. Storytelling

has to be as important

around drivers and rivalries

as we see it, you know, on the dawn

here today of

another season of Drive to Survive.

Yeah, you know, you've touched on

really something

that is super important is how do you

grow the sport. It's a

sport that's been around for over a century

and I'll use the Speedway maybe as an example

when I first started working

at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and

in this job our

ticket holder, so not necessarily the person that

attended, but the person that spent the money to buy

the tickets, whether they bought one or they bought

50, was a

50-year-old white guy.

And then the next year it was a

51-year-old white guy and we quickly got to a point

where you're like, okay, look, if we don't do

something different, pretty soon

our sport is going to die with our

demographic that is spending the money

and is the passionate fan about it. So

we had to pivot and start thinking about

how do you attract that next fan?

How do you go out and find the fan

that may not even know that they're a fan, but

how do you make it compelling enough to get them involved

and we've over the last

108 years been able to really drive down

the age of our customer

who buys tickets. We can see in the demographics

we spent a lot of time trying

to find really a non-traditional

IndyCar racing fan and get them

to really understand what the celebration

of the Indianapolis 500 is about

and we have the same challenge at the

IndyCar series. We have very, very passionate

fans who are loyal to the

sport, but

without figuring out how to get

families, kids,

diverse population,

a whole bunch of people

in the gates or watching on TV

we're not going to grow the sport.

So it starts with telling the stories

of our people, the

drivers that are there using the foundation

of the racing, but how do we begin to do that?

Fox being able to tell

the stories of the personalities of our

drivers out of the car

through some of the commercials they've done

those are helpful opportunities

but it's also fine in promoters

who

want to get out in the community

and go talk to people in their community

about our sport and it's

one of the things early in my days

of the Speedway, when you looked

around the racetrack and you realize

that it is

an older white male

population was okay how do we get more

people here and the response to me

was well they can just buy a ticket

the gates are open we want everybody

but you have to leave your office

and walk out in the neighborhoods

and walk out in the community and

introduce yourself and tell them about the sport

and bring them in and I get the question

all the time around the 500 from people

say hey this is my first 500 do you have any advice

for me and I say yeah go with somebody

who knows what's happening

because you're going to walk into a place where

it's literally 350,000 people

it's the second largest city in the state of Indiana

and if you get there

and you don't know anything about the sport

and what you're going to do it's intimidating

you have to have that Sherpa

that walks alongside you and helps you

understand what you're seeing and explain

and this is the same with the IndyCar series

and it starts with us telling those stories

making people feel welcome

spending time in the community

getting them out and then

we still are in a very

I would call it

retail

type business

you can do the fox wholesale messaging

but when you really convert somebody

it's in that retail one-on-one experience

and we can't give up

on that communication

that face-to-face communication

and it just takes time to build in

and for us that's a big focus for us

is making people feel special

making them understand why they should

care and introducing them to our sport

and it starts with our fans

who are the best sales tool we have

and when they feel good about our product

they feel good about inviting their neighbor

inviting their cousin bringing people in

and once we get them in

I think most people are hooked

and you see it in the Indy 500

we sold out the grandstands last year

we likely sell out the grandstands the Indy 500

this year the first week in May

not the last week in May I mean just the momentum

and that really starts with

the product but it really

starts with the way our fans help us

sell why people should care

so it goes back to my first question

if you're wearing two hats Doug

at all times of course you want

Indy 500 to be a runaway success

of course you want Indy car

as a series

to be a runaway success

does the Indy 500

act as a gateway for new fans

discovering the series I mean you're not

try not to be too self-serving

on the one hand but you're really

satisfying both ends of it aren't you

yeah and it comes with a really interesting challenge

for us

we sort of call it the Indy 500 hangover

so

the TV number of the Indianapolis 500

so last year it's a 7 million

viewers that peaked a little over 8 million

during the race and then you go to

Detroit the next week and somewhere

you lose 7

million of those 8 and you have a million

people watching the race so the question is

how do we take

that fan that watches

the Indy 500 and say hey just watch one more

if those people

watch just one more the rest of the season

or if they would just go to one more

it's a huge difference in the way that our sport grows

so it's a

it's an opportunity

that we still haven't quite figured out

how do you

how do you get those fans to convert to not just

hey it's the Indy 500 I've done this with my family

for the last however many years

to get them to say hey it's the Indy 500

but did you know they race next weekend in Detroit

so those are

so yes it is an

opportunity for us we haven't quite

figured out how to

work the people at the rate we really want to convert them

and that's one of the things that

you know that we continue to

try and figure out how to make work

well you're leveraging a single event to

elevate interest across the entire season

but it's also

the Indy 500 it has

its own thing to it

you know it's

not all that different than the Daytona

500 that we just saw

played out as the first

first race of the season from that car

you know

and the opposite problem is

the Super Bowl at the end of a

magnificent NFL year

let's talk Indy the Indy 500

for another moment you mentioned that

you'll likely be sold out

in the first part of May any other changes

that we'll see for the Indy 500 in this

you know America's 250th

birthday or anything that's

around that no I think

you know one of the things that's been great

since Roger bought the Speedway it's just the investment

in the fan experience you know things

that you know aren't necessarily glamorous

redoing all our restrooms for example

which has sort of become one of the

big stories you know just when he

you know bought the Speedway COVID

happens right

and typical of Roger Pinsky's

crazy ability to see around corners

you know all the rest of us all we could

see was a big old stoplight we didn't know

what to do and he said look

I've gone through the list of things you guys

have always wanted to do if we can't have fans here

then let's do the things

that you can't do when you're having events

to make the fan experience better and

it's every year we're doing something

different for the fan experience to make it better

in terms of the actual

race itself

we will definitely

pump up the celebration of the 250th

anniversary of our country it's Memorial

Day weekend so we've always been

central to the

Indy 500 has always been the celebration of

men and women who serve and ultimately

those who pay that ultimate sacrifice

on Memorial Day weekend

so a lot of military stuff

you know last year we surprised people with the helicopters

which was a lot of fun

even drivers commented on that

so trying to make sure that we

you know keep elements like that as part of

pre-race and

but otherwise part of what makes the 500

special is the DNA

the things that are so central and important

to it that we can't change 500 miles

yard of bricks 33 cars bottle of milk

those things the pre-race ceremony

you know those things will be

what people expect just maybe amp

up a little bit as we get ready

for the 250th anniversary of our country

great let's end where

we started you stepped into

a role now you're now

one week ten days into

year two you stepped in

you inherited controversy

and issues you didn't personally create

how do you process

that responsibility as the public

face of the series and how does it shape

the way you go forward

now in year two

well I think

doesn't matter how the issues were created

right when you've got the hat on to manage

through it it becomes yours

and so certainly

you know last year

you know I've obviously been around the sport

I went to probably

you know 60 2 thirds to 3 quarters

of every Indy car race over the

over the last 15 years

of my life

so very familiar with our sport

it was obviously involved in a lot of things

on the pinskey entertainment

side and the home

and George side of things

so I knew what was going on

but getting in the job

really begin when you start assessing the challenges

that you have the bigger challenges

and then even

the smaller challenges I mean getting

culturally our organizations

to work together there was

a divide that there was

north side of 16th street which was the Indian

apolis motors be way in the south side of 16th street

which is Indy car so

really spending time really trying to

get everybody to realize hey we're all on the same

team we gotta work together we gotta

combine resources how are we helping each other

out

so getting my head around

all of the challenges

and getting that list

so now I obviously

know most of them right we'll find things

on the way that maybe creep up

that we aren't aware of

so I think that helps me going in the year too

I really focused on where we

go I want more

than anything for this independent officiating

board to be successful

so whatever we can do from a serious

standpoint to make sure that that's successful

I don't we're always gonna have

calls made that'll be

part of racing and the outcomes

of racing

but what I don't want we don't need another

where those calls that were made or weren't made

become the story

about the racing and not the racing itself

so that's important

for us as

we go forward in terms of this job

I feel like

we got a pretty good handle on

what we need to do to grow it and then how do we

really spend time this year invested

in the growth of the sport

and not just the mechanics

and the inside baseball side of the sport

so I'm excited for this year

I feel like

last year literally

I got

called and said hey by the way

you got a new job

and you get to keep your old one

and then the day after

the announcement I was on a plane on the way to

Sebring to go reintroduce myself to team

owners and drivers at the Sebring test and then

a week later or so you're off racing

in St. Petersburg

so having had the off season to really

work through I think will be helpful but

we'll see how things go this weekend

when we get it kicked off racing's always better

the off season is so long

that you know once we get

on track I think that definitely helps us

keep us all on the same path

and grow in the sport when we're starting year

three final question

what do you want teams and fans maybe partners

to say about your year two

that the year

the year that well first of all I want

them to think that the year one with Fox

and the growth that the IndyCar series had

is maintained

and even grown further I think that's really

critical for us we have to do that

that the independent officiating

board has relieved

a lot of the question

marks of whether there was

complete

transparency in the way

that the series officiated its

races that we

can announce our

20 27 schedule

early enough and people see

continued growth and opportunity in the way

that we grow our series and balance our schedule

and then

you know maybe most importantly that

you know fans continue to believe

that the IndyCar series

is growing and they can't wait

for the 20 27 season to start

yeah wonderful

I'll see you on the streets of St. Petersburg

here this weekend Doug

I wish you all the best of luck in

year two and congratulations

on getting through the challenges of year one

well thank you very much

appreciate I'm sure there'll be challenges of year two

but I think we're ready

to deal with them great thank you so much Doug

thank you big thanks to Doug Bowles

president of IndyCar and the head of the Indian

apolis Motor Speedway to see more cars

and culture interviews visit the cars and culture

YouTube channel subscribe comment

check out hundreds of conversations with the

creators collectors and culture makers

who are driving the industry forward

that's episode 241 here on cars

and culture I'm your host Jason Stein

we'll see you down the road

Episode 241: Doug Boles, President of INDYCAR

About this episode

IndyCar

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

competitive integrity

governance

fan trust

transparency

St. Petersburg Opener

Indy 500

Indianapolis 500

Indian 500

Brickyard 400

attenuator

independent officiating

CART

Indy Racing League

unification

Chevy

races events

Long Beach

Formula One

NASCAR

Watkins Glen

Drive to Survive

Daytona 500

fan experience

pre-race ceremony

500 miles

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Cars & Culture with Jason Stein