IMS President Doug Boles talks pace car and ticket sales 6 months after the Indy 500

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – A nationwide audience of football fans got a dose of the Indianapolis 500 this weekend.

On FOX NFL Sundays, host and Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Strahan announced that he will be the honorary pace car driver for the 109th Indianapolis 500 this May.

Along with the announcement was a first look at Will Power’s IndyCar livery and a look at a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Coupe, the pace car for the Indy 500.

For the first time ever, the Indianapolis 500 and the entire NTT IndyCar Series will be broadcast on FOX. IMS President Doug Boles was at the FOX studio in Los Angeles for Strahan’s announcement. Boles said such exposure helps the sport grow.

“To do it with that platform of the over 15 million people that watch this show, and they actually talked about it at halftime of the afternoon game, so there’s about 20 million more people that watch the IndyCar brand, the brand Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” Boles said. “This is very valuable.”

Strahan mused on the show about the Corvette ZR1’s speed and how “it’s going to be hard to catch up to me.”

Boles said this is the second time they’ve tried to get Strahan behind the wheel of the pace car, but so far they haven’t been able to make the schedule work. This year, too, there were initially some questions as to whether Strahan would even fit in the car.

Boles said they drove a car to Los Angeles last weekend so Strahan could test it.

“With the helmet on, he’ll basically be at the top of the car,” Boles said. “It wasn’t built for such tall football players, especially not with a helmet, but it fit in perfectly. We put the seat back as low as possible.”

On Monday, it will be six months until Strahan will lead the 33 drivers to the start of the 109th Indianapolis 500. Boles said it feels even closer.

“Once you’re in January, you might as well be in May because it’s happening so quickly,” Boles said.

The 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 ended just before sunset on May 27 after race fans endured a four-hour rain delay.

Boles said IMS was on the verge of a sell-off by the time the forecast was released.

“Day after day going into May we were selling more tickets than we had the year before and I felt like we would probably sell out the reserve tickets on Monday or Tuesday of race week,” Boles said. “And then the 10-day weather forecast came out that basically said a 100 percent chance of rain on race weekend, and you saw our ticket purchases drop.”

A sell-out of reserve tickets usually means a lifting of the local television blackout. Even without the sell-off, the decision to lift the suspension was made after the delayed race began.

Since the 100th edition of the historic race in 2016, IMS has not sold out reserve tickets. Boles said they have kept the momentum going since then and have been able to increase attendance every year since the pandemic.

Boles said ticket sales at this point are higher than the same period last year. The hope is for a sell-out of reserve places in 2025 and a lifting of the local lockdown.

“That’s one of the things I really want to do, is sell this place at a time when it’s not the 100th running of the Indy 500,” Boles said.