Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
MotoGP's final grand prix at Phillip Island was cancelled due to poor weather preventing the medical helicopter from leaving the circuit. Moto3 and Moto2 races were also cancelled. At least we got a sprint race where Marc Márquez took victory and Jorge Martín suffered a forearm injury while battling Márquez for the lead. Márquez takes a ten-point lead into Sepang next week. Elsewhere, NASCAR was in Talladega and the championship could be clinched next week at Martinsville, Formula One was in Austin and the championship could be clinched next week at Mexico City, and IndyCar answered the question, "Where is Phase Two?" The full 2027 IndyCar schedule is here. Where do you think we would begin this week?
Hola, Phase Two!
On Friday, IndyCar's latest best-kept secret became public in an announcement from Barcelona. With series champion Álex Palou present, the series confirmed it will race at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in 2027 with a race announced for July 18. The deal reportedly is a ten-year agreement to bring IndyCar to Catalunya. It will be IndyCar's first fly-away race since 2013, and it is American open-wheel racing's first venue to Europe since 2007.
About three hours after the announcement from Barcelona, the remainder of the 2027 calendar was confirmed.
There are a few changes, nothing was added into the opening half of the calendar, which was announced during the "Phase One" announcement back in August, and a smattering of people are upset about the lack of oval races, especially as another oval track has fallen off the schedule.
So... you know... same as it ever was in IndyCar.
We already knew the season would begin with three consecutive races at the start of March from St. Petersburg to Phoenix on the NASCAR weekend to the second Arlington race. Barber Motorsports Park will run the first Sunday in April with Long Beach occurring two weeks after that. There will be a month between races with the Grand Prix of Indianapolis on May 15 before the Indianapolis 500 on May 30 and Detroit the week after that.
Between Phase One and Phase Two, Gateway and Road America announced, accidentally and intentionally respectively, their races on June 13 and June 27 respectively.
What Phase Two has confirmed is a summer that is largely unchanged.
July 4th will be spent at Mid-Ohio. Two weeks later will be Barcelona. Two weeks after that will be Portland. Two weeks after that, IndyCar's second international trip to Markham. Two weeks after that, two races at Milwaukee. A week after Milwaukee will be the season finale from Laguna Seca on September 5. The good news is the races are spaced out.
The only change is Barcelona in and Nashville Superspeedway leaves the schedule as Music City Grand Prix promoters wanted to turn their focus to the event returning to a downtown street race. Washington, D.C. is also absent after being long suspected as a one-off event.
Look... I am older, I have been around, everything hurts, this is an IndyCar schedule. It is no different from many IndyCar schedules before it. There is nothing to be overly upset about. It wasn't that long ago we had three ovals on the schedule with one being a doubleheader, and we all survived. The core of the schedule is still there, and now there is an international race.
If you had been told on Carb Day this past May that IndyCar would have a European race in 2027, majority of the fanbase likely would have been thrilled. The problem is Nashville ran into its own issue with a promoter no longer fancying an oval race 45 minutes outside the city as an alternative event in the area, and another oval falls off the schedule with none to replace it.
So... you know... same as it ever was in IndyCar.
I have been in the mob, and now I am outside of it, perhaps because sanity and reason has washed over me. IndyCar could use a few more oval races, but for the better part of the last two decades ovals die because crowds dwindled and most were in front of empty grandstands. Texas Motor Speedway didn't go away because it was doing too well. There weren't 10,000 people there the last few years.
It is an unfortunate cycle for IndyCar oval events. An IndyCar oval race is a promising first year but with room for growth, the second year is flat or slightly less and then a decline occurs that either leads to a exit after year three or a slower decline that sees an oval get a few more years. Milwaukee this year wasn't spectacular after two strong years before, and some of that might have been the weather this year, but it could have always been the lost of steam after a strong start.
I might be outside the mob, but I am realistic about the oval issues, and I am not a part of the other mob saying "Fans need to support ovals." The same 15,000 people cannot attend a half-dozen oval races spread across four time zones. If IndyCar is promoting better viewership and more interest in the series, it must be able to attract crowd from the local areas that can support these races.
Nashville, Tennessee has about two million people living its the metropolitan area. IndyCar cannot draw out 35,000 locals for its one visit to town? That isn't a lot of people and Nashville Superspeedway only holds 40,000 people for the NASCAR Cup race. IndyCar might only need 30,000 to sell out the race.
IndyCar cannot speak out both sides of its both and say viewership is up and more people who were previously not engaged with IndyCar are now watching, and yet cannot find anyone new to the audience to support its races, especially oval races.
Formula One has added two races in the United States over the last five years, and those races don't have the same 100,000 people attending them who have been Formula One races in this country for the last 25 or 30 years. Those people are new. Those people started watching in 2019 or 2020 or 2021 and now they are spending $3,500 for three-day tickets. Those people were out there and there are still people out there like them who will engaging with something that feels worthy of their attention.
Formula One could add a race anywhere in this country and 150,000 people would be there on race day. IndyCar adds a race and it cannot even break 15,000 people but it fingers will point the failure to the people who already watch IndyCar on a regular basis for not showing up when the race is two time zones over.
And quick sidebar, why does every IndyCar race live-and-die by the walkup crowd? This isn't a Formula One or NASCAR issue. It shouldn't come down to weather, and whether or not 5,000 to 8,000 people decide they feel like they want to go to a race within 48 hours of it taking place. IndyCar must get to a place where the demand is there and people want to go and know they will be going six months or more before it happens. That is what makes a race an event. People are planning to do it months in advance, not waiting and seeing if they are free that weekend or if the weather is going to be hospitable.
Any councilor would look at the relationship between IndyCar and its regular followers as a severely damaged relationship, and no one within the series wants to address it. If it was an intimate relationship, it would be advised to cease the cohabitation immediately.
This is what an IndyCar schedule has been essentially since 2012. It isn't bad. There are holes. It is frustrating the series does not do more to fill the craters and set it up more for success. Fixes are always pushed 18 months down the line and we are always back where we started 18 months later. It would be nice if the series showed more proactiveness. IndyCar has taken on promoting more of its events, see buying Long Beach and setting up Milwaukee, but no one else is stepping up to help with the remaining issues. As much as the series might not want to acknowledge it, the remaining problems will only be solved when the series steps up and addressed them on its own.
There does feel like lost momentum after Washington, D.C. where an event attracted 100,000 some-odd people each day and now there is no race in that area in the country. I know a fair number of people were there because it was free, but there must be at least 40,000 people who attended that would travel and buy a ticket to Richmond and then another 15,000 people who weren't at Washington, D.C., but who live in the area and would also go to Richmond.
Even if it was a place holder, Richmond makes sense for the first weekend in May, two weeks after Long Beach and two weeks prior to the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. It might cost a pretty penny to rent out, but IndyCar already spent $35 million for Washington D.C. A Richmond race must cost a tenth of that, and it could have kept five oval circuits on the schedule while filling a month gap. Yet, the opportunity was missed.
Of course, easier said than done, but it feels like something that should bother the series and IndyCar should step up and address it. Yet the track record told us it wouldn't do a thing and it didn't do a thing. We cannot be surprised, but we can continue to feel disappointed.
For all the talk of growth, it is hard to see. Yes, we have an international race and a trip to Europe and a world-class city in Barcelona, but simultaneously an oval race has been lost. Growth is adding to what you already have. This is another case of net-zero change for IndyCar. One event enters and another leaves. An event fell off the schedule because the promoter grew tired of the challenge. If Nashville Superspeedway was successful and making money for the Music City Grand Prix promoters, it would be on the schedule in 2027. It wouldn't be spinning it as focusing on returning the race to downtown Nashville. They are in the money-making business, and the money wasn't in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Maybe we need to properly frame whatever metrics IndyCar is using in terms of growth because entering 2027 the series feels like it is exactly where it has been for the last 15 years. It could be worse but let's not confuse it for being better than ever before even with a European trip planned next summer.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Marc Márquez, but did you know...
Andrea Kimi Antonelli won the United States Grand Prix, his ninth victory of the season.
Chaz Mostert and Broc Feeney split the Supercars races from Surfers Paradise.
Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Cup race from Talladega, his third victory of the season. Sammy Smith won the Grand National Series race and Truck race from Talladega, and Smith became the first non-Cup driver to win the lower NASCAR national touring series races in the same weekend at the same track since Greg Biffle won at Phoenix in 2001.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One spends the holiday weekend in Mexico City, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli could clinch the championship.
MotoGP hopes the weather cooperates in Malaysia.
NASCAR's penultimate weekend will be in Martinsville, and Kyle Larson could clinch the championship.
