It’s been said that the “stay in tonight and Netflix'' attitude has been a big detriment to race tracks, streaming TV services like Netflix have made it too easy to stay home and not take the time or effort to spend a night at the track. This is not the case for one track in Iowa, in fact, Iowa Speedway should send Netflix a thank you card for possibly saving the track.
When Iowa Speedway opened in 2006 it was perfect for the local race fan. It’s not a BIG NASCAR track where the cars get spread out making it hard to see cars all the way around the track. Former ASA star Rusty Wallace knew how to please both the fans and drivers by designing the perfect combination of Short track and Speedway. Iowa is a 7/8th of a mile track with 12-15 degree banked corners, a curved front stretch with 10 degree banking to provide great sight lines for the grandstand and a straight backstretch that has only 4 degrees of banking.
It is fast but not too big. It was the first NASCAR oval track built without an outside wall; it was made with the safer barrier as the outside wall.
Woody Howard won the first race at Iowa Speedway in September of 2006 in the USAR Hooters Pro Cup series.
The ASA Late Model Challenge series raced there in October 2006 with Kelly Bires winning, Steven Wallace won the ARCA race at Iowa Speedway the next day.
I went down to Iowa in 2007 to watch the ASA Midwest tour race, Tim Schendel was the winner of the 150 lap race, Jonathan Eilen was the runner-up. Two NASCAR drivers were brought in to compete with the local stars and to help with attendance, Matt Kenseth finished third and Kyle Busch led 72 laps but finished 22nd. Donny Reuvers and Chris Wimmer wrapped up the Top 5 that day. I remember asking Kyle Busch in the press conference if he thought driving in this race might help him someday in the NASCAR cup series if they ever came to Iowa Speedway. He said IF they ever did, it probably would, well it’s 15 years later and we are still waiting for that to happen, if the Cup series would’ve raced at Iowa, the track's future assuredly would’ve been different. The ASA Midwest tour raced at Iowa a few more times; in 2009 Chris Wimmer won, Jeff Choquette won in 2011 and Brent Kirchner won in 2012. The Frank Kimmel Street Stock series raced there in 2013 and Chuck Barnes Jr won, that was the last time a local/regional type series competed at the track.
In 2010 NASCAR did come to Iowa Speedway in form of the Nationwide series and Truck series, the crowds were building, in August of 2011 Dean Reller and I covered the Nationwide race that is considered the most exciting of any race at Iowa Speedway, rising star Ricky Stenhouse Jr won in front of a reported 48,271 fans. Carl Edwards’ car was leading the race but losing power on the last lap as he tried in vain to block his teammate and hold on for the win, Ricky Stenhouse Jr crashed into the back of Cousin Carl’s car and passed him just before crossing the finish line. The crowd was thrilled, many people would consider that the pinnacle moment of success for Iowa Speedway. The Manatt family, the original builders of the track, sold their majority interest in the track at its peak of popularity in 2011 to the Clement family.
NASCAR and Iowa Speedway then split up the Truck series, Nationwide series, ARCA and IndyCar races into either 3 or 4 weekends of racing per year. The crowds slowly decreased thereafter, the racing was still good but the novelty was gone and eventually the casual race fan quit showing up. The crowd had shrunk down to less than half of what it was at its peak.
November 2013 NASCAR had purchased the track, reportedly at a huge discount. Ticket prices were reduced but attendance did not rebound. I remember buying a $20 ticket and nearly being able to have an entire section of the grandstand to myself. Iowa Speedway did a lot of things well, their food was superior to most race track offerings. They had a popular kids club where children got to ask drivers questions and had their own press conference. They tried doing the drivers meeting outdoors, so the public could attend, and many hundred did. Their staff was always friendly and welcoming to the media, they tried hard to give the true race fan what they wanted, good racing and an organized atmosphere. Where they lacked was keeping up with the casual sports fan, there was no big replay screen like at the football games and the extra concourse entertainment declined with the dwindling fan count. The fans wanted the NASCAR cup series to appear at Iowa, but that never happened.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, NASCAR abandoned Iowa Speedway (except for the ARCA series). Indycar had been a loyal supporter of the Iowa track, racing every year from 2007 through 2020, but then IndyCar dropped Iowa Speedway from the schedule for 2021. The future for the track looked bleak.
Until Hy-Vee CEO Randy Edeker became a fan of the Netflix F1 documentary style TV show Drive to Survive. Hy-Vee is a Des Moines (IA) based supermarket chain that had a small IndyCar sponsorship with Rahal Letterman Lanigan racing. When talk of a renewed sponsorship was brought up Edeker was happy to have his company invest into the sport of IndyCar, a sport that was showing rising popularity, just like the F1 stars he has been watching on Netflix. But when he heard that Iowa Speedway had dropped off of the IndyCar schedule, he decided to do something about it and put his money where his mouth is.
Long story short, with support from a huge local sponsor, IndyCar brought Iowa Speedway back on the schedule for a double header weekend in 2022, they freshened up the paint and added covered suite-type seating in corners 1 and 4, to keep people out of the blazing sun. Huge replay screens were added in the corners so people in the suites were able to watch them but still none for the main grandstand. Racing alone isn’t enough to bring a big crowd back to the track, Hy-Vee used their corporate contacts to convince big stars like Mark Walberg to be the Grand Marshall, American Idol winner Maddie Poppe to sing the National Anthem and Top Selling acts like Tim McGraw, Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani to do full hour long concerts both before and after each of the two races.
These IndyCar races at Iowa Speedway were promoted with huge signage in all of the 280 Hy-Vee grocery stores and thousands of employees were given free tickets to attend. Both races were broadcast on NBC, the Saturday race had more than 900,000 viewers, the Sunday race over 700,00 viewers while in direct competition with the NASCAR race taking place in Pocono. The $20 ticket I bought five years ago is long gone too, tickets in the lower (less desirable) location are now $65 each day for the race and concerts, but the ticket increase did not decrease the crowd.
The weekend was a smashing success even though the weather was incredibly hot with temperatures in the upper 90’s on Saturday, the in person attendance was over 35,000 on Saturday and over 32,000 on Sunday. I would say that a majority of those in attendance were not the traditional racefan, many came for the music, or the party or even the 40+ food trucks on site. The vibe was electric and I bet many new fans were made on that day, boding well for the future.
Josef Newgarden won in the 250 mile race on Saturday and then crashed on Sunday opening the door for Pato O’ward to win the 300 mile race on Sunday.
The drivers seemed to be just as delighted as the fans on how well the weekend went, many drivers went above and beyond to have interactions with the crowd including legendary NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson who signed autographs for fans before the event and scored his first ever IndyCar Top 5 finish after.
The Hy-Vee IndyCar weekend at Iowa will occur again in 2023, the renewal for the tickets has already been processed and the future for Iowa Speedway now looks very promising thanks to the vision of a high powered CEO and a little nudge from his favorite Netflix TV series.
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