Episode 241: Doug Boles, President of INDYCAR
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
45:15
Concept
IndyCar
IndyCar is a type of car racing in America where special fast cars race on different tracks, including big oval tracks and city streets. It's very popular and important in American racing.
Concept
Indianapolis Motor Speedway
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a big race track in Indiana where many famous car races happen, including the very famous Indy 500 race.
Concept
competitive integrity
Competitive integrity means making sure the race is fair for everyone and no one cheats or gets special treatment. It helps keep the sport honest and fun to watch.
Concept
governance
Governance means the people and rules that make sure the racing series is run properly and everyone follows the same rules.
Concept
fan trust
Fan trust means that people watching the races believe the sport is fair and honest, so they enjoy watching it more.
Concept
transparency
Transparency means being open and honest about what's happening in the sport so fans can understand and trust it.
Concept
St. Petersburg Opener
The St. Petersburg Opener is the first big IndyCar race of the year, held on city streets in Florida, where the racing season officially begins.
Concept
Indy 500
The Indy 500 is a big car race that happens every year at a special track called the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It's very famous and lots of people watch it because the cars go really fast.
Concept
Indianapolis 500
The Indianapolis 500 is a big car race held every year where drivers race around a big oval track. It's very famous and important in car racing history.
Concept
Indian 500
The Indian 500 is a big car race that happens every year in Indianapolis. Lots of fast cars race around a big track to see who wins.
Concept
Brickyard 400
The Brickyard 400 is a big car race with stock cars that happens at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Term
attenuator
An attenuator is a part on race cars that helps soak up the force if the car crashes, keeping the driver safer.
Concept
independent officiating
Independent officiating means the people in charge of making decisions during a race are neutral and fair, so no one gets special treatment.
Concept
CART
CART was a group that ran car races in America, similar to IndyCar, and they raced against each other for a while.
Concept
Indy Racing League
The Indy Racing League was another group that held car races in America, and later joined with CART to make one big racing series.
Concept
unification
Unification means when two groups that were racing separately joined together to make one big racing group.
Brand
Chevy
Chevy is short for Chevrolet, a big car company from America that makes many types of cars and trucks.
Concept
races events
Races events are car races that also have fun things for people to do, like shows or parties, not just the racing.
Concept
Long Beach
Long Beach is a city in California where they have a special car race on the streets every year. It's a popular event for race fans.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is a type of car racing with very fast and special cars that race on tracks all over the world.
Concept
NASCAR
NASCAR is a type of car racing where cars that look like regular trucks or cars race on mostly oval tracks. It's very popular in the US.
Concept
Watkins Glen
Watkins Glen is a well-known race track in New York where many important car races happen. It's a place where race cars compete on a special road course.
Concept
Drive to Survive
Drive to Survive is a TV show that shows what happens in Formula 1 racing, helping more people get interested in the sport.
Concept
Daytona 500
The Daytona 500 is a very famous car race where stock cars race on a big track in Florida. Many fans watch it every year.
Concept
fan experience
Fan experience means how much fun and comfort people watching the race have, like good bathrooms and places to sit.
Concept
pre-race ceremony
Before the race starts, there are special events and traditions that happen to get everyone ready and excited for the race.
Concept
500 miles
The 500 miles is a big car race where drivers race around a track many times until they cover 500 miles. It's a very famous and important race in car racing.
LIVE
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
About this episode
Doug Boles, president of IndyCar and head of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, shares insights from a challenging first year leading the series. He discusses navigating controversies, improving transparency and consistency in officiating, and balancing the sport's rich traditions with growth and innovation. Boles highlights the importance of communication among passionate stakeholders, the unique role of the Indy 500 as the sport's foundation, and the strategic changes underway to enhance competition and fan engagement. The episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at leadership, governance reforms, and the future direction of American open-wheel racing.
Original notes
Doug Boles, President of INDYCAR
Cars & Culture with Jason Stein
SiriusXM
0:00
45:15