What would that look like?

What would be the perfect IndyCar Series calendar? In the middle of the three-week Olympic break, it feels like a good time to think about it.

What we already have is a great base to work with: IndyCar’s fine mix of ovals, natural off-road tracks and street circuits make it the ultimate test for open-wheel racers in cars producing more than 800 horsepower.

The good news is that NBC’s move to the FOX TV network means there are no longer any Olympics or Tour de France to worry schedulers. But FOX’s football-heavy sports programming means the season will have some hard bookends from mid-February through September, which is fine.

The 2025 schedule is already set, so let’s look ahead to 2026 for our fantasy schedule.

The Super Bowl is in early February, and the following weekend is NASCAR’s Daytona 500. So let’s move the season opener to an old IndyCar favorite: Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The beauty of that location is that we can do a spring test on the street circuit midweek, then attend a media content day at a luxury hotel in South Beach and then hold the season opener on the 1.5-mile variable banked oval.

Atmosphere in Miami Beach: the Loews Hotel

Photo by: Eric Gilbert

After a weekend away, we’ll head down Alligator Alley to St. Petersburg on the opposite coast of Florida for the first street race of the year. Then we’ll take a southwesterly turn and visit a new event at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City to please Pato O’Ward’s legion of fans. Then we can head back across the border to Texas Motor Speedway to take advantage of a vital sports market.

Speaking to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown in Toronto, I asked him what we were missing in terms of key markets, and one of his ideas was this: “I think we need to make dial-up more of a tech sport, so that’s the West Coast, so I think Sonoma and Laguna Seca and Long Beach. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

Colton Herta, Harding Racing Chevrolet, leads a pack in Sonoma

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

So, let’s add Sonoma to the schedule as the first of a triple-header with Long Beach and Laguna. Add some marketing around this “western swing” and you might just get people interested in visiting all three of these classic tracks.

The mega Barber Motorsports Park is keeping its spring date, but here’s another suggestion from Brown’s that I’d like to put on my schedule: “I’d like to see us in Denver. I think we need to get out of some of the more rural markets, not all of them, and deal in the bigger markets.”

Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing, racing in Denver

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

The streets of Denver are no strangers to IndyCar, having hosted CART races in 1990 and ’91, and then enjoying five years of them from 2002-’06. Bring it back just before the crown jewel, the Indianapolis 500, and who cares about a race at Indy diluting the majesty of the greatest oval race on the planet? Denver would be a lot more fun.

After such a series of races – we’re already halfway through! – that take their toll on everyone involved in the sport, I would take a weekend off after Indy before racing through Detroit, St. Louis and Road America.

After the summer break, July should start with the fantastic weekend in Iowa (hopefully with better racing thanks to a weathered circuit) and then we will make a double appointment of the visit of the IndyCar to Canada, combining the fantastic street racing festival of Toronto with a round at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

Sebastien Bourdais leads the Champ Car field in Montreal

Photo by: Motorsport Images

I put this to Will Power and he said, “I always push for Montreal and we used to go to Edmonton. They were always great, great races for us. So, get going with Montreal guys, get us to that track! That’s right where we need to be.”

Then let’s head back to the heartland of America and revive the round at Watkins Glen, in beautiful upstate New York, to give a bit of the Northeastern flavor that the schedule otherwise lacks. And then, after a round on Milwaukee’s historic oval, let’s bring back another crowd favorite – one that Brown is excited about bringing back to life…

“I’d like to see something like the Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland again, but under floodlights,” he said. “Can you imagine that on a Saturday night?

“The fans can see everything, it’s a pretty cheap structure to put up and I’d rather see us there than Mid-Ohio, with all due respect to the history we have there.”

Race starts at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland

Photo by: Steve Swope

Adding a runway would just be another string to IndyCar’s bow, and I always remember that FedEx plane between the corners! The wide-open corners always invited ambitious lunges (who can forget Jacques Villeneuve vs. Robby Gordon?) and super racing.

Then, for the season finale in late 2026, we can hopefully restore the Nashville street track layout, including sections on the famous Broadway strip. That would be a great way to end the season and give everyone an excuse to party afterwards.

Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet, on the streets of Nashville

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

So there you have my ideal calendar, a 20-round championship with seven road courses, six ovals, six street events and one airport venue – with a nice variety throughout the season. The exits to make way for more interesting and relevant venues are Thermal, Indy’s road course, Mid-Ohio and Portland.

How about a Winter World Tour…

With an off-season that lasts more than five months, it leaves the door open for IndyCar to host some extracurricular racing. So why not take the show on a world tour?

An obvious place to start is Japan. Title sponsor NTT Data is headquartered there, and engine supplier Honda happens to own Motegi and Suzuka! All we would need is a logistics partner, such as DHL, to pay the freight, and our show would be on its way.

Team Penske Dallara Honda’s Helio Castroneves leads the Bridgestone Indy Japan 300 at Motegi

Photo by: Sutton Images

But where else? I asked Will Power for his thoughts on the subject and he replied, “We used to get huge crowds in Brazil. That was a great place for us to go. When we went to Australia, we went to Japan, like all those places were big events.

“I don’t know what the financial side of it is, whether that’s the reason we’re not doing it, or is it more of a TV thing? But I think they’re looking at that. I think they’re always looking at different options.”

IndyCar has previously raced on an oval track in Rio, and held four races on a street circuit in Sao Paulo around the Anhembi Convention Center between 2010 and 2013. Parts of the circuit are now used by Formula E. If that is not possible, there is always the option of racing at Interlagos.

Will Power leads Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe in Surfers Paradise

Photo by: Motorsport Images

But the circuit that gets an “Awww yeah!” reaction from Power is the mention of Surfers Paradise. Although the 2.7-mile street circuit that IndyCar used from 1991 to 2008 has been reduced to 1.8 miles, it would still provide an epic flyaway to crown a Winter World Tour champion.

Let’s hope that IndyCar’s horizons can be broadened in the coming years, under the visionary legend of Roger Penske and his team’s relationship with race promoters.