After Iowa's biggest racing season, can Iowa sell tickets to IndyCar and NASCAR races?

NEWTON — After a summer of racing in Iowa unlike any other, can NASCAR and IndyCar both succeed at Iowa Speedway?

NASCAR sold out all three days in June for its inaugural Cup Series weekend at "The Fastest Short Track on the Planet." When NASCAR made the surprise announcement in October that it would come to Iowa Speedway, it stunned IndyCar officials who worked to re-open the track after it fell off the IndyCar and NASCAR schedules in 2021.

NASCAR is IndyCar's competitor and landlord at Iowa because NASCAR owns the track and leases it to IndyCar for its July weekend. Weekend ticket sales to the Hy-Vee IndyCar Doubleheader — now in its third year — increased 22%, said Penske Corp. president Bud Denker.

"I thought we’d get hurt badly this year because of NASCAR being here,” Denker said.

Denker said he told NASCAR officials "Guys, you'll kill us," when they made the announcement in October.

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Given all the tension between NASCAR and IndyCar in Iowa over the last several months, perhaps it's fitting that Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney won the inaugural Iowa Corn 350 in June and his IndyCar teammate Scott McLaughlin followed that up with a win in Hy-Vee Homefront 250 Saturday night. On Sunday their teammate Will Power finished off the Penske sweep with a win as well.

Blaney spent a significant amount of time in Chariton and Ankeny as a younstern, going to his grandparents' house and visiting other family members.

The NASCAR Cup Series will likely return to Iowa Speedway next year, Denker said. NASCAR will likely not announce its schedule for several more months, but the date will not pose any challenges for IndyCar, Denker said. Now Denker is convinced the two series can co-exist as the popularity of racing in Iowa booms.

This year 44% of tickets sold to the IndyCar weekend were sold to out-of-state fans, Denker said. Iowa is a strong market for racing, but word is getting out to fans from other states, he said.

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"The key thing is that we keep our events spread enough apart, not on top of each other," Denker said. "We've got enough separation for ourselves next year for ourselves to be successful like we were again this year."

In June numerous NASCAR drivers spoke highly of the energy with sellout crowds. Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, said after the June 16 race that Iowa should remain on the Cup Series schedule.

"It seemed like it was a pretty entertaining race," Logano said. "The place was packed. The fans showed up. From the inside it looks pretty good."

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IndyCar's Romain Grosjean, driver of the No. 77 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet, worried Friday that NASCAR would hurt IndyCar's attendance.

"It was actually a decent race," Grosjean said of the June NASCAR race. "The crowd was amazing. I'm hoping we get a good crowd this weekend because I don't like when NASCAR beats us."

Transforming music fans into race fans

Clouds hung over Iowa Speedway like cotton balls on Friday evening, blotting out the sun and creating perfect conditions for a pit-stop competition and fan fest. It felt like a perfect night to hang out at the track. On terraces overlooking the backstretch, fans sat under canopy tents next to campers, kids giggled as they threw footballs and 12 American flags blew in a gentle breeze.

By 4 p.m. Saturday the temperature rose to 88 degrees, with a heat index of 103 degrees. But the stands were packed, the only empty seats from fans who paid an extra $200 to go on the track during the Luke Combs concert.

Gracie Lynch, 18, and Wyatt Voelker, 21, both of Manchester, strutted onto the apron of Iowa Speedway just after 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Luke Combs and Eric Church concerts convinced them to buy tickets to Saturday's events.

Lynch's father is a big race fan, but neither she nor Voelker had been to an IndyCar race. Between the Luke Combs concert and Eric Church concert after the race they planned to find a friend and watch the race. Voelker said he was excited to see his first IndyCar race.

"I was going to bet on it, but I couldn't find a betting site," Voelker said. "I'm pretty excited to watch the race. I'm not going to lie."

For Denker that's the whole point of the weekend. As temperatures soared before the Luke Combs concert Denker handed out water bottles to fans.

On Indianapolis 500 race day the Indianapolis Motor Speedway holds the Snake Pit, an electronic music festival inside Turn 3. The goal at Iowa is to create an atmosphere similar to the Indy 500/Snake Pit dynamic, Denker said. This year 27,900 fans were in the Snake Pit. Most were between ages of 18 and 24. Penske Corp. knows that many former Snake Pit attendees who get exposed to the race later buy tickets to the grandstand to watch the race, Denker said.

“About 25, 26 they start timing out,” Denker said. “That’s the transformation that we want to see here too. There’s no better way to do it than what we’re doing here.”

There were also plenty of race fans who wore t-shirts of drivers like Alex Palo, Romain Grosjean and Pato O'Ward. Joe Rossiter, of Carroll, won a Chiquita Banana contest. So he got free tickets. But Rossiter is a huge IndyCar fan. In the past he's gone to IndyCar races at Road America in Wisconsin and the Nashville Grand Prix. Rossiter was at his first Hy-Vee IndyCar race weekend. While Rossiter is a hard-core race fan, he said the concerts were "an added benefit."

With Hy-Vee's sponsorship he hopes that IndyCar keeps racing in Iowa for years to come. Rossiter plans to buy tickets to come back.

"It's such a nice event for the area," Rossiter said. "Five years ago there was no sponsorship for the event. It was just dry. It was a great race, but overall it's nice to have somebody that brings people from all around."

'They ruined a perfectly good race track'

NASCAR partially repaved all four corners of Iowa Speedway in May.

In the two NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series races, second and third lanes formed above the predominant low lane. Fans got treated fans to arguably the best short-track Cup Series race of the last three years. Riley Herbst, who finished second in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race June 15, hoped NASCAR kept pavers off of the remaining portions of the track.

"I hope they don't touch it again," Herbst said after the race.

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell finished fourth in June's Cup race, but hated what NASCAR did.

"The track could use a little bit of work. Hopefully they do a full repave. Then it will be really good in about 15 years," Bell said June 16.

McLaughlin, driver of the No. 3 Team Penske Chevrolet, executed a lap 94 pass of Colton Herta on the outside during a restart Saturday. The pass ended up winning him the race. But for the rest of the race drivers were stuck to the bottom like glue.

Arrow McLaren driver Pato O'Ward said the repave "ruined a fantastic race."

When drivers are alone the track is fine, O'Ward said. But in traffic "you can't get by anybody."

"You might get there on the restarts, which I think is what you saw," O'Ward said. "But when you're done with that first lap after the restart you just can't. It's just accepting the wall or at least crapping your pants."

Josef Newgarden has won six of 10 races at Iowa since 2016. But IndyCars don't work on the current track, Newgarden said.

"Unfortunately I don't think our car and our formula work well for this type of track adjustment," Newgarden said. "We're different than a Cup car. We've developed our car differently than they have and it doesn't always mesh."

On Sunday Chip Ganassi Racing driver Scott Dixon raced in his 21st event at Iowa Speedway, making him one of a handful of drivers to race in every race at Iowa Speedway since 2007. In the first few races drivers simply followed the white line at the bottom of the track, he said.

"It was a big pack race. It was kind of chaotic," Dixon said.

As the pavement aged, racing improved, he said.

"We went through a really good period the last 10 years where it's been multi-lane and high (tire wear). The repave they've done has taken away a lot of our raceability that we had. I miss last year's track because it had a lot of character, a lot of bumps. Then you had the use of two, three, four lanes.

'Racing is a big part of the Iowa economy'

Several factors led to this year's increased attendance. IndyCar decreased ticket prices by as much as 45% when tickets went on sale last year after high prices in 2023 turned off many fans, according to Racer.com. Steadily the series increased prices closer to the event, but lower prices drew more fans, Denker said.

As Hy-Vee uses IndyCar to grow its own brand, racing is having its own moment in Iowa because of the success of NASCAR, IndyCar and Knoxville Nationals. Knoxville Raceway hosts racing on 33 nights from April through September.

Bob Baker, executive director of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum in Knoxville, said most of Iowa’s 99 counties have dirt tracks. This creates opportunities to be exposed to and try racing, Baker said. The Aug. 7-10 Knoxville Nationals are the nation's premier sprint car event and have a purse of $1.15 million.

“There’s more dirt tracks in the state of Iowa than any other state,” Baker said. “Racing is a big part of the Iowa economy. You think farms and soybeans and corn. But car racing, a lot of money is spent on trucks and trailers and race car parts and tires and wheels and components for the race car.”

'Corn brothers'

Like in presidential politics, Iowa is a proving ground for race-car drivers. In 2009 NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski won the first NASCAR Xfinity Series race here. "I felt like I had really made it that weekend," Keselowski said in May. "So it was really special."

Iowa pulls people to places they normally would be nowhere near, whether it's presidential candidates flipping pork chops at the Iowa State Fair, sweaty cyclists trekking river-to-river each July or racecar drivers conquering "The Fastest Short Track on the Planet." Before Sunday's race David Letterman, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, walked the starting grid on pit road, marveling at a fly over after the national anthem.

Before Graham Rahal hopped in his No. 15 RLL Honda on Sunday morning he hugged his daughters. Rahal's wife Courtney and their two daughters came. So did his brother in law and their kids, who watched both races from a camper on the back straightaway. Rahal's father Bobby, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 Champion, is a co-owner in the team and hung out by the team's transporter earlier. On NBC after Sunday's race Graham Rahal said the track "was starting to come in like old Iowa."

"I was at Iowa last year wondering around the back straight, and there's (1992 and 1994 Indianapolis 500 Champion) Al Unser Jr. sitting up there," Rahal said. "He brought his fifth wheel. Here's one of the most-iconic IndyCar drivers of all-time and he's sitting on the back straight just watching good racing. I think that's what Iowa does."

Like Keselowski, McLaughlin felt like he made it after winning Saturday, the first oval win of his career. "The Boss" Roger Penske was on hand to see his win. Blaney, McLaughlin's close friend and NASCAR teammate, texted McLaughlin, "We're corn brothers now." McLaughlin backed up the win by starting on the pole for Sunday's race and finishing third.

"I got a lifeline to come over to America to achieve a dream," said McLaughlin, a New Zealand native. "But I had to deliver. It was getting pretty slim for me on the ovals."

Philip Joens covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Can both IndyCar and NASCAR be sustained at Iowa Speedway?