October 28, 2025 • 8 mins
IndyCar and IMS President Doug Boles joins us and discusses how they’re putting a bow on the IndyCar season, Indy 500 ticket sale update, his Indy 500 countdown clock, the Fox/IndyCar deal, independent officiating & more!
Support the show: https://1075thefan.com/the-wake-up-call-1075-the-fan/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, emerging from the green room now is the
Doug Bulls, the aforementioned man over at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Good Tuesday morning, Doug, Welcome to the show and we
are always happy to talk to you. How are things
going in the quote unquote off season?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, we finally are in the off season. Finally. We
just had our last test on track yesterday.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
And now we start winn rising and counting down for
the twenty twenty sixth season.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So but you know, the good news is we.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Get lots of great sports in Indiana to watch for
the next few months until we go racing again.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I still want to have a football game somewhere in
the infield. Is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Anywhere?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
You know, it would be possible to do for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
The challenge we have is the place is so big.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
You would put this, you know, you put the field somewhere,
like if you put it in turn one, for example,
in the grass area in Turn one, you'd only have
a portion.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Of the track that can see it.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So while we have two hundred and thirty five thousand
permanent seats, not all of them would you know, would
get to see it. So that's the biggest challenge. You know,
we couldn't engage all of our seats, but I would
love like the Winner Classic or some cool football game.
You know, basketball came on the yard of bricks kind
of thing, if you build it. You know, we've we've
explored a lot of it. We just haven't found the
(01:09):
right the right thing yet.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I like all the things that you tend to
come up with, they're always kind of fun. What are
you guys working on right now? What can you tell
us about where we're at the Speedway as we sit
here a few days before Halloween.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, we just, like I said, we just got done
with our last real test yesterday for the Indie Next cars,
which are those cars that are just below the Indy
Car cars. So we'll start winn rizing getting ready to go.
But our tickets go back on sale. So the biggest
time for tickets sales for us is in our renewal period.
So as soon as the checker flag falls and the
Indy five hundred got five hundred hours to renew, your
tickets are asked for an upgrade and then the team
(01:42):
goes through all that and once that's done.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Tickets go back on sale for folks that don't have them.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So today we go back on sale with tickets about
two hundred and eight days from the one hundred and
tenth running the eighty five hundred. So we'll start cranking
away and getting prepared for getting prepared for the spring.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
The tearaway calendar. On the dusk the desk of Douglas.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
He's going to say, give us some insight, Doug, as
to what that looks like for you. Do you have
like just like a big clock in your office that
lets you know by the second of when the next
eighty five hundred starts.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I do have a big clock in my office that
lets me know by the second win the five hundred starts.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But it's I.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I do. I do have a big it's a big
Miller like clock. So it reminds me that I need
to drink a beer. And by the way, it's two
hundred and eight days until the Indian APLS five hundred.
So today at two thirty, I'll switch to two hundred
and seven days and twenty three hours and you know,
fifty nine minutes.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
But so yeah, so today's two hundred eight. But I've
done it.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I've done it so long now it's just in my head.
It's just one of those things that I just automatically
count down. It's it's part of the fun. And yeah,
so it just it just is kind of there.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, I have to ask you now, next year, when
we do our annual Miller Miller like Carb Day show
out there at the Speedway, you're gonna come by and
crack one with Kevin and James and I like we
did last year.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I will one hundred percent any opportunity I have to
grab a beer at the Speedway and call it work.
I'm in so I'm happy to do that. It's uh
part part of the fun. In fact, my you know,
one of my favorite times the month of May is
the night before the five hundred, when you know, I
basically just stay up all night and what I end
up doing is is taking my tie off and walking
(03:18):
out in the crowd in the coke lot or through
the neighborhoods. And I'll allow myself to have one beer
during the night, because I probably shouldn't drink a lot
the night before the five hundred. But part of the
fun is just is just hanging out with folks and
watching that and and I tend to end up with
a cors light instead of a Miller light, but the
same family, so it works well.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But that's that's kind of kind of where I am.
But happy to share a beer with you guys.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I think you and John maybe cheers last year in
the in the cokelat the night before the race. The
Great Doug bulls with us here on the Payloss Slickers hotline. Doug,
I think it's our first conversation since the news of Fox,
you know, buying a I guess a chunk of any
car and I MS, what do you envision as different?
What will that financial backing from your TV partner, which
(04:04):
is super unique in any sport, What will that do
for you guys? Maybe as early as twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well, I think the biggest thing is it's it's sort
of an endorsement that they see a lot of upside
in the in the IndyCar series as we go forward
it for them to invest in it, you know, they
obviously saw what we see, which is a lot of
upside and a lot of a lot of great things
on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So that that's that's kind of the biggest thing for me,
is just that endorsement from them.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
The Secondarily, I mean we saw it last year, just
the investment that they make, and they did it this
past weekend during the IU game, you know, having Alex
plow down and really talking about the Indy five hundred,
so leveraging a lot of their other other sports properties
to really help grow the Indy five hundred and the series,
and then having some of the Fox creative folks, Eric
(04:49):
Shanksky and one on our board really helping us think
through how do we just continue to invest more in
the promotional side and grow the sport. I think that's
where we're going to see the biggest value. And in fact,
I sent a long note yesterday to Eric on some
of my thoughts in terms of how are we what
are the pillars that we really should be growing the
series around, and how that we get after it and
(05:10):
how can we engage their help to get there. So
those are I mean, that's really what I think we'll
see is just some of the brain power that they
that they bring along with it. And then, like I said,
it's just a great endorsement that somebody else sees the
value in the Indy Car Series, in the upside that
we have over the next few years.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Any clarity from a third party race control. Obviously we
had all the inspection kind of drama from last year.
Any any clarity on that.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, I think where we're going to end up with
that is we're going to end up having to really
roll that announcement out here in the next couple of weeks.
We've gone through a lot of different options of ways
to get our officiating independent and independent in the sense
that it just removes any optics challenges of the owner
of the series and the owner of the speedway actually
(05:58):
owning a team that competes in it. So we have
to build that firewall that allows the series and the
fans and our partners to feel comfortable that all decisions
that are being made are not being made in a
way that are benefiting the owner of the organization. So
we've had several options that.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
We've looked through.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I think we've narrowed it down to a couple right now.
We had a long meeting yesterday about really going through
the pros and cons of both.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So I think we're going to get to a situation in.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
The next couple weeks where we'll be rolling that out
with the teams and then ultimately rolling that out to
the fans, but we're definitely committed to independent officiating in
beginning in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Doug, you got caught being a nice guy again. I
got a story from a listener this morning. You says
a great story about Doug. We were at the recent
sports car race at IMS. Doug was driving around in
his vintage nineteen twenties race car. He stopped around where
we were saw my five year old son looking at
his car. Doug immediately signaled over to us told them
to climb in moment. My kid will never forget how
(06:55):
much fun was that, you know, one.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Of the biggest things for me. So I bought this
crazy night teen twenty four race car a year and
a half ago because it was in nineteen twenty four,
Chevy on firestones, all the things, and it was the
twenty twenty four eighty five hundred. I called my wife
and I said, hey, I want to buy this car.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
She said, you don't need another car. I said, well,
I need this one.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And the reason it is is because it's not a
current IndyCar.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Obviously, it doesn't look like a current IndyCar. But what's so.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Cool about it is it does attract I mean, kids
love it so and the ability for me to just
step out of the car and let a kid get in.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The car and pretend they're driving.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
You know, the most important thing any of us do
for our sports and the health of our sports long
term is engage kids so that their lifelong football, basketball,
racing fans, whatever it is. And so for me, it's
just a really cool opportunity to get a kid to
smile and frankly, get their parents to smile right when
they get a chance to get in the car. So
you know, there's nothing better than watching kids fall in
love with your sports. So that's really the purpose for
(07:52):
that tool. So I do that quite a bit with
that car.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And the speedway police were nice enough to allow me
to license this so I can actually drive it down
main stream and you know, it's it's really a fun
little it's really a fun little car.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
That's good stuff. Well, enjoy that. Back to work selling
tickets today, And what's the best way for people to
get tickets is to go online?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Or what do they do?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, they can call the office, but you know anymore,
going online IMS dot com is the easiest way to
do it. You can always call three one seven four
nine two eighty five hundred if you want to talk
to a live person. I remind people that our ticket
team is literally in our office. We're not outsourcing it
to some tickets a ticket broker or some some ticket
call center somewhere, so they can if you want to
know what your seat's going to look like, they can
go out and.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Take a picture of what the view would be like
from your seat. And we we really take pride in
the way that we handle our customer service. So either
online or call them folks in the ticket office.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Doug Bowles ims, thanks for checking in. We'll talk to
you soon.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Boddy, No no problem, guys, take care. Thanks
All right, emerging from the green room now is the
Doug Bulls, the aforementioned man over at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Good Tuesday morning, Doug, Welcome to the show and we
are always happy to talk to you. How are things
going in the quote unquote off season?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, we finally are in the off season. Finally. We
just had our last test on track yesterday.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
And now we start winn rising and counting down for
the twenty twenty sixth season.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
So but you know, the good news is we.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Get lots of great sports in Indiana to watch for
the next few months until we go racing again.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I still want to have a football game somewhere in
the infield. Is that even possible?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Anywhere?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
You know, it would be possible to do for sure.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
The challenge we have is the place is so big.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
You would put this, you know, you put the field somewhere,
like if you put it in turn one, for example,
in the grass area in Turn one, you'd only have
a portion.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Of the track that can see it.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So while we have two hundred and thirty five thousand
permanent seats, not all of them would you know, would
get to see it. So that's the biggest challenge. You know,
we couldn't engage all of our seats, but I would
love like the Winner Classic or some cool football game.
You know, basketball came on the yard of bricks kind
of thing, if you build it. You know, we've we've
explored a lot of it. We just haven't found the
(01:09):
right the right thing yet.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I like all the things that you tend to
come up with, they're always kind of fun. What are
you guys working on right now? What can you tell
us about where we're at the Speedway as we sit
here a few days before Halloween.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Well, we just, like I said, we just got done
with our last real test yesterday for the Indie Next cars,
which are those cars that are just below the Indy
Car cars. So we'll start winn rizing getting ready to go.
But our tickets go back on sale. So the biggest
time for tickets sales for us is in our renewal period.
So as soon as the checker flag falls and the
Indy five hundred got five hundred hours to renew, your
tickets are asked for an upgrade and then the team
(01:42):
goes through all that and once that's done.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Tickets go back on sale for folks that don't have them.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
So today we go back on sale with tickets about
two hundred and eight days from the one hundred and
tenth running the eighty five hundred. So we'll start cranking
away and getting prepared for getting prepared for the spring.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
The tearaway calendar. On the dusk the desk of Douglas.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
He's going to say, give us some insight, Doug, as
to what that looks like for you. Do you have
like just like a big clock in your office that
lets you know by the second of when the next
eighty five hundred starts.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I do have a big clock in my office that
lets me know by the second win the five hundred starts.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But it's I.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I do. I do have a big it's a big
Miller like clock. So it reminds me that I need
to drink a beer. And by the way, it's two
hundred and eight days until the Indian APLS five hundred.
So today at two thirty, I'll switch to two hundred
and seven days and twenty three hours and you know,
fifty nine minutes.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
But so yeah, so today's two hundred eight. But I've
done it.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I've done it so long now it's just in my head.
It's just one of those things that I just automatically
count down. It's it's part of the fun. And yeah,
so it just it just is kind of there.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, I have to ask you now, next year, when
we do our annual Miller Miller like Carb Day show
out there at the Speedway, you're gonna come by and
crack one with Kevin and James and I like we
did last year.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
I will one hundred percent any opportunity I have to
grab a beer at the Speedway and call it work.
I'm in so I'm happy to do that. It's uh
part part of the fun. In fact, my you know,
one of my favorite times the month of May is
the night before the five hundred, when you know, I
basically just stay up all night and what I end
up doing is is taking my tie off and walking
(03:18):
out in the crowd in the coke lot or through
the neighborhoods. And I'll allow myself to have one beer
during the night, because I probably shouldn't drink a lot
the night before the five hundred. But part of the
fun is just is just hanging out with folks and
watching that and and I tend to end up with
a cors light instead of a Miller light, but the
same family, so it works well.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
But that's that's kind of kind of where I am.
But happy to share a beer with you guys.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I think you and John maybe cheers last year in
the in the cokelat the night before the race. The
Great Doug bulls with us here on the Payloss Slickers hotline. Doug,
I think it's our first conversation since the news of Fox,
you know, buying a I guess a chunk of any
car and I MS, what do you envision as different?
What will that financial backing from your TV partner, which
(04:04):
is super unique in any sport, What will that do
for you guys? Maybe as early as twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well, I think the biggest thing is it's it's sort
of an endorsement that they see a lot of upside
in the in the IndyCar series as we go forward
it for them to invest in it, you know, they
obviously saw what we see, which is a lot of
upside and a lot of a lot of great things
on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
So that that's that's kind of the biggest thing for me,
is just that endorsement from them.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
The Secondarily, I mean we saw it last year, just
the investment that they make, and they did it this
past weekend during the IU game, you know, having Alex
plow down and really talking about the Indy five hundred,
so leveraging a lot of their other other sports properties
to really help grow the Indy five hundred and the series,
and then having some of the Fox creative folks, Eric
(04:49):
Shanksky and one on our board really helping us think
through how do we just continue to invest more in
the promotional side and grow the sport. I think that's
where we're going to see the biggest value. And in fact,
I sent a long note yesterday to Eric on some
of my thoughts in terms of how are we what
are the pillars that we really should be growing the
series around, and how that we get after it and
(05:10):
how can we engage their help to get there. So
those are I mean, that's really what I think we'll
see is just some of the brain power that they
that they bring along with it. And then, like I said,
it's just a great endorsement that somebody else sees the
value in the Indy Car Series, in the upside that
we have over the next few years.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Any clarity from a third party race control. Obviously we
had all the inspection kind of drama from last year.
Any any clarity on that.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, I think where we're going to end up with
that is we're going to end up having to really
roll that announcement out here in the next couple of weeks.
We've gone through a lot of different options of ways
to get our officiating independent and independent in the sense
that it just removes any optics challenges of the owner
of the series and the owner of the speedway actually
(05:58):
owning a team that competes in it. So we have
to build that firewall that allows the series and the
fans and our partners to feel comfortable that all decisions
that are being made are not being made in a
way that are benefiting the owner of the organization. So
we've had several options that.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
We've looked through.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I think we've narrowed it down to a couple right now.
We had a long meeting yesterday about really going through
the pros and cons of both.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So I think we're going to get to a situation in.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
The next couple weeks where we'll be rolling that out
with the teams and then ultimately rolling that out to
the fans, but we're definitely committed to independent officiating in
beginning in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Doug, you got caught being a nice guy again. I
got a story from a listener this morning. You says
a great story about Doug. We were at the recent
sports car race at IMS. Doug was driving around in
his vintage nineteen twenties race car. He stopped around where
we were saw my five year old son looking at
his car. Doug immediately signaled over to us told them
to climb in moment. My kid will never forget how
(06:55):
much fun was that, you know, one.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Of the biggest things for me. So I bought this
crazy night teen twenty four race car a year and
a half ago because it was in nineteen twenty four,
Chevy on firestones, all the things, and it was the
twenty twenty four eighty five hundred. I called my wife
and I said, hey, I want to buy this car.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
She said, you don't need another car. I said, well,
I need this one.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And the reason it is is because it's not a
current IndyCar.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Obviously, it doesn't look like a current IndyCar. But what's so.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Cool about it is it does attract I mean, kids
love it so and the ability for me to just
step out of the car and let a kid get in.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
The car and pretend they're driving.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
You know, the most important thing any of us do
for our sports and the health of our sports long
term is engage kids so that their lifelong football, basketball,
racing fans, whatever it is. And so for me, it's
just a really cool opportunity to get a kid to
smile and frankly, get their parents to smile right when
they get a chance to get in the car. So
you know, there's nothing better than watching kids fall in
love with your sports. So that's really the purpose for
(07:52):
that tool. So I do that quite a bit with
that car.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And the speedway police were nice enough to allow me
to license this so I can actually drive it down
main stream and you know, it's it's really a fun
little it's really a fun little car.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
That's good stuff. Well, enjoy that. Back to work selling
tickets today, And what's the best way for people to
get tickets is to go online?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Or what do they do?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Yeah, they can call the office, but you know anymore,
going online IMS dot com is the easiest way to
do it. You can always call three one seven four
nine two eighty five hundred if you want to talk
to a live person. I remind people that our ticket
team is literally in our office. We're not outsourcing it
to some tickets a ticket broker or some some ticket
call center somewhere, so they can if you want to
know what your seat's going to look like, they can
go out and.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Take a picture of what the view would be like
from your seat. And we we really take pride in
the way that we handle our customer service. So either
online or call them folks in the ticket office.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Doug Bowles ims, thanks for checking in. We'll talk to
you soon.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Boddy, No no problem, guys, take care. Thanks
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.