How much is too much? It’s a question IndyCar Series team owners are asking themselves as a recent wave of growth continues its march into uncharted territory.
Spread across 10 teams that place anywhere from two to five cars apiece on the starting grid, IndyCar’s paddock has been filled with 27 full-time entries since 2023-a modern record. The heady number also represents the boundary of the series’ comfort zone.
Some of the tracks that host IndyCar races can accommodate no more than 27 cars on pit lane, and among its two engine manufacturers, Chevrolet and Honda are reaching the limit of how many entries they can supply. And thanks to the recent announcement of an 11th team that’s preparing to join the field, the series is expected to host 29 cars at every race in 2025. Prosperity’s tipping point has been found.
Where Formula 1 and its entrants have ranged from being impolite to downright hostile in their efforts to police expansion beyond 10 teams and 20 cars, IndyCar — owned since 2020 by business and racing mogul Roger Penske through his Penske Entertainment division — has kept its doors open for business.
As a sporting league, IndyCar has operated for decades without a formal structure in place for participation in its series; teams have joined without having to buy a franchise and left at will with nothing more than cars and empty shops to sell. But with Penske at the helm, that’s about to be modified in an impactful way as the establishment of a charter system, one that’s designed to reward its existing team owners with memberships into an exclusive franchise club, is in the final stages of planning.
And there’s a stipulation: Only those who participated as season-long entrants through 2023 are welcome. Under IndyCar’s upcoming charter deployment, which is similar in many ways to F1’s Concorde Agreement and the charter system devised by NASCAR, the absence of a business framework will be resolved. Ties between its 10 long-established team owners and the series will finally be established through the issuance of franchise contracts that cover 25 of the 27 full-time cars.
In truth, IndyCar and its engine suppliers would be more comfortable with fewer cars to manage, which is why 25 entries, rather than the complete field,…
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