ARNOLD: Reminiscing on the Weekend That Was in Phoenix

By Kirby Arnold, Special Contributor

As the NTT IndyCar series enters another weekend of intrigue with its race on the new street course in Arlington, Texas, my mind is still on last weekend’s experience at Phoenix Raceway.

Like everyone else invested in the sport — whether from a series, team, business partner or avid fan standpoint – I had a lot of hopeful anxiety over whether IndyCar’s return to the desert mile would work. Anyone who experienced the single-file snooze of the 2016, 2017 and 2018 races had to be nervous about whether this year’s show would (1) revive interest in the series on a badly needed short oval, or (2) be the end of IndyCar at Phoenix for a long time.

Full disclosure here. Besides having covered IndyCar and the Indianapolis 500 in my newspaper days going back to 1974, I love this form of motorsport. And I’m smitten with Phoenix Raceway, the unique oval with a dogleg that opened in 1964 just for IndyCar.

The history at this track is steeped with racing’s greatest names – Foyt, Unser, Andretti, Bettenhausen, Rutherford, Johncock and Savage won in the early years, and now Dixon, Pagenaud and Newgarden in the most recent races.

However, if you ask a casual race fan today – or even a local person in the West Valley neighborhood of the track – what they know about Phoenix Raceway, the answer is almost always the same: It’s where NASCAR races.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, outside old time racers seems to have a clue that IndyCar was THE show on this track for decades. I live in the winter just a few miles from the track and have spent a lot of time over the years talking with golf buddies about the racing there. These are sports fans and they’re curious about racing and they know the difference between NASCAR and open-wheel cars, but most have no idea that IndyCar is different than Formula 1.

I can’t blame people for not knowing, or not caring, because in the futile attempts to bring IndyCar back to Phoenix Raceway from 2016-2018, few even realized there was a race. Marketing and promotion was minimal.

I remember stopping at a Circle K literally in the shadow of the speedway two days before the 2018 race, where Marco Andretti’s race car was on display. A cab driver stopped to look after he’d dropped off a passenger in the neighborhood, and his only question was: “Why is NASCAR back here again? Didn’t they race just a few weeks ago?”

As for the race that year, it was (perhaps) marginally better than the previous two attempts. But the aero/power/tire combination still made it difficult to race with any pace above the inside line of the track, and for the most part it was a procession.

To no surprise, IndyCar didn’t return for 2019 … and beyond.

But a fun thing happened in the years that followed. IndyCar found a formula that worked on short ovals, and races at tracks like Iowa, St. Louis and, last year, Milwaukee were entertaining.  It made me think the current package might work at Phoenix, although to bring a race back there would take some huge effort (or, maybe, a miracle?) to return IndyCar to what had become NASCAR’s world.

Times are changing, however.

Over the past several years, America’s two major racing series evolved into something different than they had been. IndyCar clearly had hit the right buttons from a competition standpoint and the racing was phenomenal. NASCAR had headed in the other direction. Still extremely popular, but I could see the cracks growing when some of my close friends who seemed like NASCAR fans for life had given up on the sport thanks to stage racing, the playoff format and the Next Gen car.

Could it be that the two series could work together and help each other in some way? Seemed like a laughable thought, given the two core fan bases couldn’t appear to be more dismissive of the other.

When word leaked last year that Phoenix could be on IndyCar’s radar for 2026, my first thought was how? Or when? NASCAR has a traditional March date at the track and past attempts by IndyCar to race there just a few weeks later didn’t generate much in the way of attendance.

But, when it came out that the two organizations were looking at a NASCAR/IndyCar combined weekend in March, I had two immediate reactions.

No way will this happen.

But if it does, hell yeah!

When the 2026 schedule was released, IndyCar was back in Phoenix, baby! And they were going to put on a heck of a show!

I hoped. With fingers crossed.

A few teams were here in December and January as Firestone tested tires, and the entire series took part in two days of practice in February. After all that, plus a day of practice and qualifying last week, the big question was whether drivers would use the second lane on the track and make it a really good race.

The answer was kind of a bummer: “Not sure. Maybe, if the second lane comes in.”

Deflating as that seemed, I’d learned something from IndyCar drivers at short ovals the past few years. They’ll doubt there will be side-by-side competition, then they’ve gone out and leaned on each other for two hours of really good racing.

Last Saturday’s Good Ranchers 250 at Phoenix was really good racing. Some of the best of its kind, in my mind.

Drivers didn’t hesitate to take the high line to make passes and they did it from the start – Marcus Armstrong gained several places in the first two turns of the first lap. They raced nose-to-attenuator, sidepod to sidepod.

Christian Rasmussen reminded me of Thomas Scheckter with his outside passes and was the driver to beat until he got squeezed into the wall exiting Turn 2 while trying to pass Will Power. Kyle Kirkwood showed how strong he will be this year with Andretti Autosport when he took the lead late in the race. And then Josef Newgarden, with a smart call by his Team Penske crew to change tires during a late yellow, powered his way to victory in the final eight laps.

Tremendous race.

But my opinion doesn’t matter. The fans, the series, sponsors and speedway are the ultimate jurors in this case.

Three weeks ago, when the second day of the February test was open to the public, hundreds of people lined up outside the speedway gates an hour before they opened. Some were in line three hours early.

The race day crowd was the largest I’ve witnessed on a Saturday for the NASCAR weekend, and I’ve been going to races at Phoenix more than 25 years. The place seemed at least two-thirds full.

After the race, instead of rushing to talk with drivers, I went outside the grandstand and spoke with a few spectators. Overall, they enjoyed what they saw.

Morgan Sciotto, a Phoenix-area resident who is a technician at one of the Penske auto dealerships, had never seen an IndyCar or NASACAR race in person, but took advantage of free tickets available at work.  He’ll be back.

“It’s my first time, and it was good,” he said. “There was definitely a good amount of passes, especially the last 20 laps or so. Newgarden really climbed up quickly. It was impressive.”

David Dawson of Montrose, Colorado, is a NASCAR fan who witnessed his first IndyCar race. He said he “probably” would watch IndyCar again but hoped for more action like he sees in NASCAR races at Phoenix. IndyCar needs more than 25 cars in the field, he said.

“It was very interesting, but they were too spaced out,” he said. “Not enough excitement. You get a couple of passes going, but if they put more cars on track, they would really bump the ratings. In NASCAR, there are 40 cars out there. That’s what makes it exciting. It’s a different kind of racing.”

Carl Beger, of Denver, noted that passing was different than what he sees in NASCAR.

“The draft doesn’t matter (in IndyCar),” he said. “They just pass whenever they want.”

Regardless of how different IndyCar seemed to traditional stock car fans, they were intrigued enough to come back.

The IndyCar/NASCAR weekend went so well that organizers are said to be eager for another go at it next year.

One NASCAR team owner I spoke with hopes it can happen more than once a season, and there’s no reason IndyCar should be the Saturday show.

“I would like to see the two series trade days every so often, with the IndyCar on Sunday and the Cup cars on Saturday,” he said.

Bottom line: IndyCar made a great return to Phoenix Raceway. It’s sad the series ever left, but hopefully this is the re-start of a longterm relationship.