James Hinchcliffe Explains Why IndyCar Is Still the Best-Kept Secret in Sports

The 2022 NTT Indycar season has been nothing short of spectacular. This season, the series matched records set 60 years ago with nine different pole sitters in the first nine races. There are genuinely 15 drivers who could win each weekend, and late in the season, the top six drivers were separated by less than a single win’s haul of points. To put that in perspective for all the Drive to Survive–ers, Max Verstappen could have skipped two grands prix this summer and still have been leading the F1 championship come fall.

This story originally appeared in Volume 13 of Road & Track.

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The competition on track is better than ever in IndyCar. Car counts are higher and healthier than we’ve seen for decades, and new hybrid powertrain regulations in 2024 should add to the series’s appeal. What about the events themselves? The Indy 500 was a near sellout, we had enormous crowds at Long Beach, and Toronto saw its biggest crowd since the late Nineties. Thanks to a herculean effort from Penske Entertainment and title partner Hy-Vee, Iowa set attendance records and a new standard for race promotion. Add in known crowd favorites at Nashville and Gateway, and things are looking strong.

Of course, some races lack the allure and attendance of the past. We still have a gap in the Northeast, and there were some pre-Texas rumblings that we might be headed to the 1.5-mile oval for the last time. That tone changed slightly after the most entertaining race since the track’s 2017 repaving and re-profiling. Sprucing up an event to Iowa-like levels takes a committed partner. Hopefully, Texas’s improved raciness piques the interest of a company that could fill that role. The series cannot afford to lose another oval.

IndyCar has the best on-track product on four wheels (my unbiased opinion), healthy car counts, and seemingly increasing sponsorship, yet its fan base seems largely unchanged. The series has added many valuable official partner­ships, but few have moved the needle in terms of fan growth. A high-level exec from a former IndyCar sponsor once told me that IndyCar racing was the best-kept secret in sports. That was 12 years ago. Sadly, that is still the feeling among many in the paddock.