The broadcaster taps its quarter century of expertise in motorsports
By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S., Sports Video Group
Friday, February 28, 2025 – 1:40 pm
Over the past 25 years, FOX Sports has helped revolutionize the way motorsports are covered on television through its Emmy Award–winning NASCAR broadcasts and a variety of other racing properties. This weekend, a new chapter in FOX’s racing odyssey will begin in St. Petersburg, FL, when the network launches its 17-week slate of NTT IndyCar Series broadcasts — all of which will air on the FOX broadcast network.
“We’ve been covering NASCAR for 25 years,” notes Mike Davies, SVP, technical and field operations, FOX Sports. “There’s no question that motorsports has always been in FOX’s DNA. Think back to when [legendary FOX production executive] David Hill worked with [NASCAR founder] Bill France to re-create NASCAR as a television product [when FOX acquired the rights in 2001]; I think there’s a similar opportunity for us here with IndyCar.”
IndyCar viewers can expect to see many FOX signature production elements throughout this season, including live drones and more than a dozen in-car cameras, Ghost Car and telemetric pointer graphics, and aggressive audio deployment to capture the sounds of the track. Also new are Heads Up Display (HUD) graphics integrated into in-car cameras that offers crucial data overlays for both drivers and viewers.
“Indy is one of the most respected racing leagues in the world,” Davies adds. “To be part of it is something we’ve wanted for a long, long time. We couldn’t be more excited. That said, IndyCar is totally different [from NASCAR]. We’re going to see a lot more road courses, very different cars, and a whole different kind of technology behind it all. That offers some real opportunities and some real challenges, too. But we’re looking forward to taking them on, and we’re confident we’ll rise to the occasion.”
Established Infrastructure: Partnership With IMS Productions
FOX Sports is teaming up with IMS Productions, IndyCar parent Penske Entertainment’s in-house production arm, to produce all races this season. As it has done for several years, IMS Productions will continue to provide all onsite facilities and much of the below-the-line crew. Meanwhile, FOX’s IndyCar operations are led by George Grill and Matt Battaglia, who oversee all of the broadcaster’s motorsports operations, including NASCAR.
“IMS Productions has their own operational infrastructure, trucks, and facility in Indianapolis,” says Davis, “[With] other [properties], we would have had to conjure up the entire operation from scratch. An enormous amount of work was already done by the experts at IMS, who have been doing this for a long, long time. We are overlaying the production prowess of FOX Sports on top of the operational expertise of IMS productions, which is going to be a great mix.”
FOX has brought in its own on-air talent (led by Will Buxton, James Hinchcliffe, and Townsend Bell) and front bench (led by producer Pam Miller and director Mitch Riggin) to put the FOX Sports stamp on the IndyCar broadcasts. In addition, FOX will rotate in a triumvirate of its top A1s to mix the audio: Jamie McCombs, Kevin McCluskey, and Sean Peacock, along with submixer Robert Sweeney, will bring the Emmy Award–winning FOX Sports audio ethos to IndyCar broadcasts.
IMS Productions, led by President Kevin Sublette, upgraded much of the gear aboard its HD5 mobile unit prior to the launch of IndyCar on FOX this season, including a new Grass Valley Kayenne K-Frame SXP-I switcher. IMS will be supported by several of FOX’s longtime vendors, including NEP Specialty Capture (formerly BSI) for in-car cameras (13 in-car cams will be deployed at St. Petersburg this weekend) and CES Power to drive the production compound.
“We’re looking forward to working with a new mobile unit,” says Davies, “but, most of all, we’re looking forward to working with the people at IMS Productions and building this partnership. I think both of us want to create something new and different. We’ve got our NASCAR ways, and Indy has their own ways. Together, I think, we can collaborate to create something really special.”
Graphics Lead the Way: Ghost Car, Car Pointers, Heads Up Display
In terms of graphics, FOX has been working with IndyCar to add car tracking similar to that seen in its NASCAR coverage. In a joint effort by FOX, IMS Productions, and SMT, the cars will be equipped with SMT’s GPS Vectors to provide accurate GPS positional data for every car. The data will be used for optical car-pointer graphics, the Ghost Car car-comparison overlay (with four AR-calibrated cameras available), broadcast analytics that will allow FOX to show detailed analysis of the cars in a 3D environment, and the Heads Up Display (HUD) feature.
“I think there will definitely be some similarities [to NASCAR on FOX],” says FOX Sports SVP, Graphics Technology and Integration, Zac Fields. “We have been doing racing for 25 years. However, we will be looking to highlight the speed of the cars and quality of driving with our new tools. It’s always exciting to launch a new sport, but IndyCar is special because we feel like there is a lot of room for innovation.”
In terms of graphics, FOX will bring in the Ghost Car overlay of AR technology seen on its NASCAR coverage (as well as on MLB coverage) to visually compare two cars’ performance (CLICK HERE for RACER’s in-depth piece on the technology). This dynamic tools illustrates lap time comparisons to viewers with a virtual reference and is primarily used in qualifying.
Although IndyCar broadcasts have featured pointer graphics at times in the past, the element has not been a fixture on coverage in recent years. Davies believes their inclusion will be a key differentiator for IndyCar on FOX.
“Indy hasn’t used pointers for several years,” he notes. “We’re very excited to bring those back. Plus, a lot of the features that came out of the SMT universe over the period when Indy didn’t have pointers will now be brought to IndyCar, including the Ghost Car and the Heads Up Display. These are things we’re excited to bring out because they made a huge difference in NASCAR; we can evolve those tools for road courses and make them more specific to IndyCar.”
SMT has been a staple in IndyCar broadcasting since 1995 and has partnered with Fox and IMS Productions again this year to provide a laundry list of graphics, real-time telemetry, and explainer elements. This weekend, SMT’s RACEf/x Tracking System will make its IndyCar debut, providing real-time data visualization and advanced tracking for enhanced race analysis. In addition, SMT is providing its HUD Graphics, ISOTrack Optical Pointers, Ghost Car Broadcast Analytics, GEMStat Scoring and Data (featured prominently in broadcast graphics such as the pylon, timing, and scoring crawls), and Telestrator and Ticker services to support both on-site and international broadcasts.
On the Road: FOX Looks to Drones in Covering IndyCar’s Road Courses
With the majority of IndyCar races being held on road courses, FOX’s coverage will differ significantly from its work on NASCAR tracks. Davies likens a NASCAR race at a Superspeedway to covering a football field, while an IndyCar road course is closer to covering a golf course.
For example, this weekend’s Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg track is street racing featuring tight corners and high-speed straights, as well as a dramatic stretch down the runway of Albert Whitted Airport. To cover the sprawling race, the FOX and IMS production will rely heavily on drones, which are being deployed for the first time in St. Petersburg.
“It’s a bigger area to cover, and that typically means more cameras,” says Davies. “Your aerial cameras wind up being vitally important in a road course, and those aerial pointers are also very important to keep people aware of the action. While there’s no substitute for being at the race, the fact is that you see only a very small segment of the race when you’re at a road course and are back to watching it on the [videoboards]. The very best way to watch a road course is on TV, and we’re looking forward to seeing what our director Mitch Riggin and producer Pam Miller can do.”
All Eyes on Memorial Day Weekend: Plans for Indy 500 Begin To Take Shape
FOX Sports’ last NASCAR race of the season takes place on May 18, and the Greatest Spectacle in Racing will air on FOX on May 25, marking the first time that both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500 will be on the same network. Although FOX is still very much in the planning phase for the Indy 500, Davies promises its coverage will have the same “big-time-event feel” with a significant pre-race show and all the “FOX flair” that viewers have come to expect from the Daytona 500 and the broadcaster’s other marquee broadcasts.
“We’re certainly looking forward to many of the very cool things that we have planned for the Indy 500 that we can talk about just yet,” he says. “What’s helpful for us is that, unlike NASCAR, whose biggest race of the year is first, we have a couple months to kick out the bugs and develop these technologies after we’ve seen them for the first time. FOX is a company that moves very quickly in terms of technological development so, if there’s something we think we need [for the Indy 500], there’s a good chance we can have it ready by then.”
For the rest of the 17-race slate, Davies says, FOX will continue to experiment with new camera angles, graphics, and other production elements as the season progresses. Most notably, plans are to deploy a Driver’s Eye system on selected drivers later in the season. As seen on FOX’s NASCAR and ESPN’s F1 broadcasts in recent years, the system consists of a miniature camera installed inside a driver’s helmet, providing a unique POV for viewers.
“This is going to be an evolutionary process,” he explains. “What we bring in this weekend is going to evolve and expand over the course of the season, as will our relationship with the league. I would expect the viewer to see incremental adds as [the season] goes on, and we’re definitely looking forward to putting something different on the screen than IndyCar fans have ever seen before.”
SVG Director of Digital Brandon Costa contributed to this story.