IndyCar must face the elephant in the room after Washington race

While politically motivated journalists who didn't even know what an Indy car looked like before this past weekend fantasized about blaming President Donald Trump for damage to national artifacts due to their intentionally flawed hot takes about race car "noise", and pretended to care about inconvenience to locals and "taxpayer money" for one of the few events held in the nation's capital (and there are many) that was actually not taxpayer-funded, IndyCar's visit to Washington, D.C. was a massive success.

Bar none.

Those who still can't admit that continue to look like fools, which has actually surprisingly been one of the more enjoyable elements of the post-race.

#Rahal2028 should have been trending after this.

We were told all week on social media (and even from certain motorsports journalists) that it was a "political" event, simply because of where it was held and the fact that Trump was involved. We were told that it was unavoidable.

Breaking news: there's a huge difference between "Trump wants to make this all about himself" and "Trump is involved, so he's the only name I can possibly think about."

This event, possibly more than any other event since Trump firmly arrived on the political scene 11 summers ago, proved that.

While those who spend every ounce of their free time on the cesspool that is the internet yelling at everybody who disagrees with them continue to fail (perhaps on purpose?) to demonstrate the ability to understand that just because somebody who is involved in politics is involved in something totally unrelated does not make said totally unrelated something political, the success of this event was unprecedented in the modern political climate.

Here's some news from the real world, as reported by Jeff Gluck.

It's amazing what happens when you actually take the time to touch grass.

Look, if you really wanted to make it political, the 1.7-mile course had seven turns: six to the left, and one to the right. What a perfect opportunity for names like Biden Bend, Clinton Corner, and Kamala Kurve for some of the left-handers, and best of all, Trump Turn for the one and only right-hand corner on the map.

But I digress. This isn't political, remember?

Over 140,000 fans were said to have attended the event on both Saturday and Sunday, many of whom had never seen an IndyCar event or even been exposed to motorsports of any kind.

And that's why, despite the fact that both Trump, a Republican, and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, have already made very clear that they want IndyCar to return to the National Mall, the elephant in the room has nothing to do with Trump, Bowser, or anything political whatsoever.

It's the fact that IndyCar can no longer ignore a market that was once thought not to exist.

After the success of this event, I don't know how you justify entering the 2027 IndyCar season, or any future IndyCar season, without at least one race in the Northeast or the Mid-Atlantic region on the calendar.

From a TV ratings perspective, attendance perspective, economic perspective, or merchandise sales perspective, there is no longer any way to argue that there is zero benefit to exploring a market that we all now know is very alive and well in terms of its massive motorsports interest, after having been told for years that it had none.

While I would disagree with even some of the drivers who argued that this event was bigger than the Indy 500 (because let's face it; the Indy 500 is still the greatest race in the world, and recency bias is real), the fact that that discussion was even brought up goes to show the sheer magnitude of this event.

Yes, a lot of the interest in this event came from the fact that it was held in the middle of Washington, D.C. Another event in the region held literally anywhere else would admittedly not have generated that level of public attention.

But at this point, that matters a lot less than it did even two weeks ago. IndyCar is officially on the map, and fans in that part of the country are now firmly aware of it. And you better believe that the 150,000+ who were denied tickets simply due to limited space wish they could have been there.

A return to D.C. would be the best case scenario, and it seems to be squarely up to IndyCar as to whether or not to make that happen.

We get it. Everyone wants to go back. You can't always get what everyone wants. Two things can be true, and this particular race was always billed as a one-off from the get-go.

But if that doesn't happen, IndyCar can simply not afford to totally abandon what is clearly a win-win situation by sticking with the status quo and going back to clearing the entire region from its schedule. Not if they are serious about growing the fanbase.

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