IndyCar making progress on independent officiating board

Penske Entertainment continues to make progress with the plan to divest itself from presiding over IndyCar’s race control and technical inspection departments.

Announced by IndyCar president Doug Boles in May, the separation will be implemented for the 2026 season and is designed to eliminate any conflicts of interest between IndyCar’s officiating arm and the series itself, which is owned by IndyCar’s most successful entrant, Roger Penske, who fields three cars in the series.

The project is in the development phase as the series workshops the composition and structure of the independent entity with its teams. Of the models being considered, two concepts are understood to have received the most support, the first being the formation of an all-new board with appointees identified by the series, and the second being an outsourcing of governance to an existing sanctioning body like the FIA, which presides over everything from Formula 1 to the World Endurance Championship.

RACER understands Penske Entertainment welcomed two delegates from the FIA to the Snap-on 250 at Milwaukee last weekend to observe its operations in race control and technical inspection as part of doing its due diligence with the second governance model.

To date, IndyCar has acted as its own sanctioning body, and the call to the FIA was made at the request of some team owners who want to see the series completely remove itself from the officiating picture – including the formation of its own independent governing board.

The first model, which would maintain IndyCar’s self-governance, albeit through a separation from Penske Entertainment’s direct control over its main regulatory body, involves identifying and empowering leaders within the paddock and industry to serve on the independent board.

If the in-house model is chosen, RACER expects to see some form of teams’ representative – likely in a revolving role with different members across the 10-plus entrants taking turns in the role – along with auto manufacturer delegates and one or more racing experts from outside IndyCar to comprise the independent panel.

Choosing a direction with outsourcing or insourcing is the next major step for the series.

“Well, first of all, it'll happen next year, and where we are right now is we are putting a structure together,” IndyCar's Boles told RACER. “We've done some of the vetting of the idea with a handful of team owners and some others, and now it's just a matter of building out a timeline and how it might work and then getting it implemented.”

The main takeaway involving the board’s creation is the purpose its members will and won’t serve.

The board would be relatively small and function as the daily decision-making and managerial group above race control and technical inspection to lead without the influence of Penske Entertainment. Simply put, the in-house independent governing board is a managerial replacement to oversee race control and technical inspection, and not a new panel of referees to insert themselves and instruct the race director or technical chief on how to officiate at IndyCar events.

“This board will not be sitting in race control or standing out around tech, helping call penalties, real time,” Boles confirmed. “Operationally, you're still going to have a race director, you're still going to have the tech team, all of those components as we know them. I don't think you're going to see that drastically change. It's going to be the way that it's led, and the way that it's clearly independent from any influence from the IndyCar Series, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, or its ownership.”