"Roger and I will talk about it" - Denker on future Washington D.C. IndyCar races

Credit: James Black

As cars rolled out on track for opening practice on the Streets of Washington D.C., Penske Corporation President Bud Denker had a tear in his eye, and maybe rightly so.

After seven months of preparation, 1350 pages of permits to navigate through and an endless number of meetings, his dream of seeing Indy cars roll out on Independence Avenue had been fulfilled.

"Yeah, I heard somebody caught me with a few tears in my eyes yesterday," Denker chuckled. "I didn't realise that was the case.

"Watching the cars come on the grid, then seeing them come down pit lane, it just hits you. It's been a year since I've been here to try to do this"

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix proved a great success. There was $969,000 in merchandise sold in the first day alone - a figure higher than the one achieved over the entire Arlington weekend and signified the first major event marking America's 250th birthday without protest. Maybe most significantly, it saw FOX's highest non-Indy 500 viewership figure since re-unification, with 3.282 million people tuning in for IndyCar's first visit to the streets of downtown Washington D.C.

Although the Freedom 250 will forever be a one-and-done event, with its design being to align with America's 250th birthday celebrations, IndyCar returning to the streets of the capital remains a possibility, even as soon as next season. Rumours over the topic had begun months before the race was held, but a successful first visit for IndyCar in Washington D.C. only amplifies the chances of it's return. The feasibility of running such an event again remain to be seen, but a trip in 2027 is already on mind of many.

"Every person was in this room and every single one of them was hitting me about coming back. Melania [Trump, First Lady of the United States] on the way out says: 'we look forward to seeing you again next year'.

"I've been saying, so has Roger [Penske]: 'let's see how it goes the first year'. Roger and I will talk about it.

"President Trump hit me 15 times today about having to have this. His view is interesting. 'Let's do it for five years because that guarantees you're going to be here through my term, then two more years for whoever is in office next'."

Credit: Joe Skibinski

Although a return might be on the mind of the President and the First Lady, there is still plenty of stumbling blocks that Penske, Denker and IndyCar have to overcome.

The primary of which is how the race will be funded. Although sponsors helped with some of the financial burden, the majority of the bill was footed by Penske to facilitate the event. With event tickets free for fans, any revenue stream for the race was minimal, with the series also deciding not to make use of the government's Freedom 250 private-public partnership to avoid controversy surrounding federal money. In fact, the only cost that wasn't taken on by Penske was the added security required for the event, which was paid for by federal and city funds.

Although the primary intention was for the event to be a non-profit celebration of America's 250th birthday, any further non-profit events would be financially unsustainable.

"I think it's a financial decision because it's very expensive to do this," said Denker on if it was his and Penske's decision to return to the race. "You don't do much in this city if it's not six figures.

"The other thing about it is, there's only one 250-year event. What is 251 going to look like? What do you call it? Sponsors that came in this year, will they come back again in a non-anniversary year? How much of this revenue would we reclaim again next year when it's not such a novelty, an event? I would be concerned about the raising of the same kind of revenue we did this year."

The following challenge that would be posed to Penske and Denker is what can and cannot be transferred to future events on the Streets of Washington D.C. There are certainly some intangibles that can be transferred though, such as the trust and transparency built between the promoters and the rest of the city throughout the negotiations and the running of the event, with Denker confident that "there would be nobody to say not to do this again".

Credit: Travis Hinkle

Another one of the underlying question marks is in relation to how the infrastructure purchased for the event, such as walls and barriers will be used going forward. Although IndyCar was able to utilise some existing infrastructure from other street courses, the financial burden of purchasing walls for Washington was not low, with estimates around the $3.5 million mark. Such infrastructure not being used again in future could come at a significant financial loss for the Penske Corporation, further so when considering the added cost of temporarily storing all the walls.

"The walls have been all bought," Denker added on the topic. "They're going to sit in a lot on New York Avenue for who knows how long. Those walls are like the half-life of uranium. They don't go away. Those walls are going to sit. You can only transfer four per truck and you can't haul them across the country. It's too expensive.

"The investment is already made in the walls and some of the infrastructure. That's a sunk investment. I'd love to have a number of years more because you depreciate that asset. We'll see.

The fence is from Arlington and Detroit. We share that. The bridges are from Arlington. We share that. The tyres you saw here, those are from Detroit. We're able to share the assets. Very transferrable."

One thing that is certainly not a question mark though is the 1.7 mile (2.7km), seven-turn, anti-clockwise circuit that was designed for the event, which saw the series race past landmarks such as the National Archives, National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

"We have the right layout here. The drivers like the track. It's tricky as well, this track. We made the turns. Tony Cotman and I made the turns very difficult purposely.

"I think the option that we created here, when I came here and designed a racetrack, was the only one we had, but also I think a very good one when you think about where else we could have gone, which would have been another mile down the road."

Now the emotions of seeing IndyCar race on the Streets of Washington D.C. have settled in, Denker, Penske and co. have several factors to consider to see if a presidential-requested return for IndyCar on the Streets of Washington D.C. is feasible. With the first half of the 2027 calendar already formalised and further dates coming together, decisions will have to made in the near future as to whether the highly-requested return is possible.

But notably for IndyCar, it marks a shift in dynamic, with the successful completion of an event rather than just another stop on a calendar. As Denker affirmed: "This was not a race, it was an event. There's a difference, isn't there?" Whether races take place in Washington or somewhere else on the East Coast like Denker suggests, the importance of creating an event will come to the forefront, as Penske Entertainment starts to consider how to further continue the upward trajectory of their series.

Those decisions will take place soon but at least for a short while, Denker and Penske can marvel in their remarkable accomplishment of running an IndyCar race on the Streets of Washington D.C., even if for one time and one time only. As Denker described it, it was a "surreal day", but it now becomes a case of if he'll see IndyCar race in downtown Washington D.C. again.