IndyCar had a moment. With Formula One fatigue setting in globally and Nascar entrenched as a regional brand, the open-wheel series offered something different: genuine competitive balance, star power, and relentless on-track drama. The 110th Indianapolis 500 was supposed to be the launchpad for a genuine comeback.
Then came the shirt.
Promoting the Freedom 250, a Washington DC street race greenlit by a Donald Trump executive order, IndyCar released a licensed t-shirt that ignited immediate backlash. The design featured a white racing driver in a pose echoing the Lincoln Memorial statue, rendered against red-striped backing with the words "One Nation, One Race." The $50 price tag paled beside the imagery itself. The figure's arms appeared to rest on Roman fasces, the bundled rods that fascist movements adopted as their symbol. Set against the image of Lincoln and the Freedom 250's Trump branding, the implications felt unmistakable to critics who flagged the design across social media.
IndyCar yanked the shirt from its online store, attributing the withdrawal to "feedback from customers" and noting that "some individuals found its phrasing concerning." A spokesperson later said the series was "reviewing its approval process related to event apparel." No explanation followed about who approved the design or how it passed through the company's vetting process.
Viewed strictly on its own terms, the flop reads as a promotional miscalculation. But for observers tracking IndyCar's trajectory in recent years, it fits a clearer pattern: a series drifting steadily rightward, both in its politics and messaging.
For decades, IndyCar operated under the Hulman-George family, a wealthy baking powder dynasty rooted in Indiana. After acquiring the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the 1940s, they built it into a global sporting monument while maintaining control of American open-wheel racing through a brutal civil war with Nascar. The Hulman-Georges treated the Indy 500 as a national institution, packaging it in military flyovers, patriotic pageantry, and the tradition of milk in victory lane. Whatever nationalism lurked beneath that apple-pie facade remained largely coded rather than explicit.
Seven years ago, 89-year-old Roger Penske, the transportation magnate and most successful team owner in IndyCar history, purchased the series and its assets. He also holds a controlling stake in a top-tier Nascar Cup franchise, a concentration of power that would spark outrage in other sports. Penske acknowledged the conflict of interest when taking control, pledging to stop sitting on his teams' pit boxes during races.
Since his acquisition, Penske has aligned publicly with Trump, a longtime personal friend. Penske drivers won White House celebrations after major victories: Simon Pagenaud's 2019 Indy 500 triumph, Joey Logan's 2024 Nascar Cup championship, and Team Penske's 2025 Rolex 24 endurance victory. Trump awarded Penske the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019, hailing him as a business titan and motorsport hero.
The alignment deepened during the 2024 election cycle. Penske Corp, the parent company of Penske Entertainment (which Fox Corp recently bought a 33% stake in), reported more than $4 million in political contributions, including $1.1 million to Maga Inc. When Trump signed the Freedom 250 executive order in the Oval Office, Penske stood flanked next to him, celebrating what Trump called "Greatness with American Motor Racing" as part of the nation's 250th birthday celebration.
Penske's own rhetoric matched his proximity to power. "Thank you for all that you and your administration are doing to put 'America First', to protect our borders, and return investment to our great country," he wrote in a February letter to Trump thanking the president for approving the Freedom 250. The White House later shared the letter on its official account.
The political implications extended beyond Penske's words. Last August, the Department of Homeland Security used an IndyCar image to promote a proposed immigration detention facility in Indiana. The car in the photo carried the number belonging to Pato O'Ward, IndyCar's only Mexican-born driver. When IndyCar challenged the DHS for repurposing its intellectual property, O'Ward reacted with visible unease. "I was just a little bit shocked at the coincidences of that and, you know, of what it means," he said. "I don't think it made a lot of people proud, to say the least."
The tension feels particularly acute given IndyCar's international roster. Nearly 70 percent of full-time drivers race under foreign flags. One-third of Penske's own IndyCar franchise represents foreign nations. The team's heritage includes Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, Australian Will Power, and Brazilians Helio Castroneves, Gil de Ferran, and Emerson Fittipaldi.
IndyCar once stood apart from its competitors in this regard. Nascar leans into American jingoism and conservative cultural signaling. Formula One conducts business with autocratic states without apology. IndyCar made visible efforts to maintain political neutrality. Two years ago, the series rejected a Trump-RFK Jr car livery for the 500, citing its longstanding policy against political sponsorships. That stance now looks quaint.
As Penske continues cultivating his Trump alliance, his strategy to close the gap between IndyCar and Nascar or Formula One looks less like a turning point than a window closing rapidly. The series' brief opportunity to offer something genuinely different may be slipping away, leaving IndyCar where it has so often found itself: grasping for cultural relevance while seeming blind to its own self-inflicted wounds.
Author James Rodriguez: "The shirt was a symptom, not the disease. IndyCar had a real chance to build something distinct, and instead it's running full-throttle into the same conservative culture wars that define its competitors."
Comments