Plenty of Reasons for IndyCar Teams to Pay Attention to Indy NXT Series

• IndyCar’s junior league is a picture of health and wealth, with 19 full-time teams slated to take part in the 14-race 2023 series.

• Indy NXT (formerly Indy Lights) has been around since 1986, and under full IndyCar sanction since 2002.

• Among former Lights champions who have gone on to IndyCar stardom include Paul Tracy, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Townsend Bell, J.R. Hildebrand, Josef Newgarden, Sage Karam, Ed Jones and Pato O’Ward.

It wasn’t too long ago—less than a decade—that the Indy Lights developmental series was on life support. The number of full-time teams had dropped to six and the series’ future appeared dismal at best.

Fast forward to today and IndyCar’s junior league is a picture of health and wealth, with 19 full-time teams slated to take part in the 14-race 2023 series, which was rebranded during the off-season from its longtime Indy Lights moniker to the Firestone Indy NXT (a cute way of saying “Next”) Series.

The new season begins this weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla.

The change from Lights to NXT also includes Penske Entertainment taking over the entire formerly Lights program from previous overseer Andersen Promotions (which remains associated with the Road to Indy, overseeing the lower-tier USF Juniors, USF2000 and USF Pro 2000). The changeover ultimately cost 2022 Lights champion Linus Lundqvist roughly between $600,000 and $750,000, which was previously staked by Andersen.

Instead of having roughly $1.1 to $1.25 million in overall prize money for winning the Lights championship that included the Andersen bonus amount, Lundqvist received only the $500,000 scholarship provided by IndyCar. The previous season, Kyle Kirkwood took home $1.2 million—$500,000 from IndyCar and over $700,000 from Andersen—after winning the 2021 Lights crown that helped field him a full-time IndyCar ride last season with A.J. Foyt Racing.

Not receiving what he anticipated for winning the Lights championship, Lundqvist is still looking for an IndyCar ride with only the $500,000 in seed money. IndyCar is also attempting to help him secure some type of ride, be it a one-off, part-time or perhaps a late full-time entry (or as a replacement driver).

“We are all big fans and supporters of Linus,” Indy NXT series director Levi Jones told Autoweek. “He's supremely talented, proved himself on the ovals, on the whole circuit, right? We fully support him and think he can be successful in IndyCar and hope and try to get him an opportunity to show what he can do.

“I don’t have a checkbook just to make it happen 100%. And, you know, any of the scholarship winners in the past in motorsports, it's taken more than what that scholarship is.”

Among former Lights champions who have gone on to IndyCar stardom include Paul Tracy, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Townsend Bell, J.R. Hildebrand, Josef Newgarden, Sage Karam, Ed Jones, Pato O’Ward and Kirkwood.

The Lights/NXT program for 2023 will show significant changes in the series’ structure. Among the most noticeable changes is after roughly three decades of racing on Cooper Tires, the NXT Series will ride on Firestone Tires, just like the parent IndyCar Series.

“With the name, the rebrand, what we're doing, this was the time to do it,” Jones said. “Bringing Firestone involvement back into the series, we're able to look at our development series as a way to try things and the focus on how we can go to market to connect with hopefully new and potentially new fans of our sport.”

But even bigger than Firestone’s involvement will be 19 full-time teams, which is the most in the Lights/NXT Series since 2009.

“We have several new teams like Cape Motorsports with two cars, teams like Juncos Hollinger that are coming back into the series after being away for a while with two cars, and then having Abel Motorsports committed to the series and ramping up their program (with two cars), Andretti has been a series staple with four cars and HMD having nine,” Jones said. “So it's a really promising season on the horizon.”