It’s time for IndyCar to do a throwback weekend.
The launch of Andretti Autosport’s latest one-off colour scheme – a Bryan Herta-inspired Shell livery for his son Colton to race in next month’s season finale at Laguna Seca – is a reminder of how much heritage IndyCar has.
What a surprise for Colton Herta! 😯
To honor Bryan Herta's first career win at Laguna in 1998, Colton was surprised with a throwback livery that he'll race at Laguna in a few weeks. pic.twitter.com/QYEQx0X4rx
— Andretti Autosport (@FollowAndretti) August 18, 2023
Colton tracked down the exact car Bryan won the Laguna Seca CART race with in 1998 and gave it to him as a present earlier this year. In return, Bryan – now Kyle Kirkwood’s strategist at Andretti since the second race of the season after being moved off Colton’s car – surprised Colton with a throwback livery that his #26 Gainbridge car will run in at this year’s Laguna race.
NASCAR has made great use of a series-wide throwback event at Darlington in recent years, and it does such a superb job of connecting the fanbase. The merchandise opportunities are huge too!
So many of the questions surrounding current IndyCar Series boil down to: how can we make the series like it was?
Sure, giving cars a lick of retro paint won’t fix that problem exactly, but it’s a great way to get everybody excited – new fans and old – about something new, a sensory overload.
Especially as IndyCar has such a rich and fascinating history that so many people live through history. All I have to say is Target, Kool, K-Mart, Player’s, Marlboro, 7-Eleven, Sunoco, Miller Highlife, Quaker State, Motorola, Havoline, Valvoline and even Pennzoil for older fans to be overcome with the memories of drivers, teams, cars and races that live long in the memory.
But it never hurts to draw them out.
Because of so many of its fans wanting to return IndyCar to its glory days, a throwback weekend would be perfect.
And some teams already do something similar in their own way. Penske runs a Pennzoil Rick Mears yellow-submarine car that, while it might not be a direct homage, looks similar. Scott McLaughlin’s retro helmet certainly helps.
Andretti itself ran Mario Andretti livery throwbacks in 2018 and 2019, while Arrow McLaren ran a selection of Triple Crown themed liveries at the Indianapolis 500 this year. AJ Foyt usually finds a way to pay tribute to its owner at the 500 too and did that this year with its cars and Benjamin Pedersen’s fantastic race suit.
The opportunities for where and when to do this are endless. Do it at one of the series’ oldest tracks, like Road America. Do it at a track that needs a TV ratings boost. Do it on an oval for some really exciting old-school flair. Or what about even doing it in practice for the Indy 500 for maximum at the track attendance viewing?
We don’t need to get too bogged down with the rules. You could even let teams run a livery from a now-defunct team or sponsor, so long as the livery is older than 10 years or so.
There’s also the sub-culture of livery designs online that can provide proof this concept would be popular and ideas for how some of these liveries work.
Since NASCAR’s 2003 Papyrus game people have been designing liveries online which continues to this day, and of course iRacing is a popular place for this.
I argued before the season started that IndyCar teams need to do a better job of IndyCar livery reveals. They often turn up at the first test or first race and just run the car in the first session and that’s the reveal.
There’s no need to go as over the top as Formula 1 launch events, but even just a video on social media creates some buzz for the series, fans and more importantly your own sponsors.
Perhaps this is the next step.
We’re constantly hearing that IndyCar needs to do more to market itself better both globally and in North America. Surely a throwback weekend would be an exciting and low-cost way to do it?
Sadly, this is not the first time a writer like myself has advocated for a throwback weekend in IndyCar and still, there isn’t one. So we’re not getting our hopes up.
But it would just be so, so cool.
Would you vote for an IndyCar throwback weekend if you had the chance? And what livery would you give to each team and driver? Let us know in the comments
