A checkered political past for Trump and IndyCar

The Trump administration will host IndyCar this week for a one-off race in Washington, D.C. — not long after the American motorsports giant rebuked the White House for using its brand to promote mass deportations.WASHINGTON (CN) — It’s race week in Washington.The city center, typically placid during Congress’ annual recess, will instead be filled this weekend with the sound of twin-turbocharged hybrid engines, as the IndyCar motorsports series brings its first ever race to the nation’s capital.Part of the IndyCar championship’s official calendar, the event doubles as a bookend to President Donald Trump’s glitzy “Freedom 250” events in Washington — which included a UFC martial arts match at the White House, a “state fair” held on the National Mall and dozens of military flyovers that filled the skies over the capital city with screaming fighter jets all summer long.The “Freedom 250 Grand Prix,” however, has been held up as a unique example of public-private partnership by both the Trump administration and Penske Corporation, the company which owns the IndyCar series.“The Penske team held more than 80 meetings in 90 days on Capitol Hill to get this event to happen over a period of years and nothing happened,” Trump said during an event last month at the White House. “When they came to see the president, when did we work it out? In about 15 minutes.”Bud Denker, president of Penske Corporation, said in a recent video clip the White House’s involvement in planning the Washington grand prix was “divine intervention from God.”But while Trump and Penske appear to be working arm-in-arm now, the relationship hasn’t always been smooth. The American motorsports giant will come to Washington almost exactly one year after it clashed with the administration in an episode that dragged IndyCar into the president’s immigration agenda.IndyCar made headlines last summer when it demanded the administration stop using its intellectual property after the Department of Homeland Security created AI-generated images of one of its race cars to promote a planned immigration detention facility in Indiana. The agency last August announced the proposed expansion to Miami Correction Facility, located roughly 70 miles south of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and dubbed the “Speedway Slammer.”The image posted by the Homeland Security Department featured an IndyCar chassis vehicle, emblazoned with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-inspired paint job, racing around a track with a gray prison building in the background. The race car featured the racing number “5,” which in real life belongs to driver Patricio O’Ward, born in Monterrey, Mexico.The Homeland Security Department used this AI-generated image to promote the proposed "Speedway Slammer" immigration detention facility in Indiana. (Screenshot via Courthouse News)A spokesperson for IndyCar told Courthouse News at the time the series was “unaware” the Trump administration planned to use its imagery to promote the president’s immigration and mass deportation agendas.“[W]e are communicating our preference that our IP not be utilized moving forward in relation to this matter,” the spokesperson said.But the Trump administration remained defiant — the Homeland Security Department called IndyCar’s intellectual property complaints “absurd” and said it would continue promoting the proposed Indiana detention facility as a “comprehensive and collaborative approach to combatting illegal immigration.” And while the agency deleted the initial AI-generated image, it later posted a similar one to social media depicting several IndyCar vehicles.The racing organization did not make another public statement about the issue.One year later, as IndyCar prepares to descend on Washington, the Trump administration again seems keen to use the motorsports series to promote its political agenda.In another AI-generated video clip posted to social media Sunday night, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy used the Freedom 250 Grand Prix as a backdrop to hype up several of his agency’s policies, such as its push to collect information on 17 million holders of commercial driver’s licenses. The Trump administration has said the policy, now subject to a lawsuit by nearly two dozen state attorneys general, is part of an effort to revoke the licenses of immigrant truck drivers.The Penske Corporation counts truck leasing, transportation and logistics services among its business interests.IndyCar’s parent company and representatives of the motorsports series itself have given politics a wide berth in the lead-up to this week’s race, pointing instead to what they’ve positioned as a unique opportunity to hold a grand prix in the capital during the nation’s 250th anniversary.“I’ve told my family: This is in my soul,” Denker said in a promotional video for the event posted to social media earlier this month. “This is not for Penske; this is not for IndyCar. This is for our country.”Speaking to Courthouse News at an unveiling event for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in March, IndyCar driver Josef Newgarden sidestepped questions about the political implications of the Washington race, saying his “sole focus” was behind the wheel.“The fun part for me is that I basically get paid to show up and try to win a race — that’s my job criteria in many respects,” he said at the time. “I go where the race cars are going.”This week’s IndyCar race has the support of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser but was established by executive order in January without the involvement of Congress. Penske had initially proposed a circuit that ran around the U.S. Capitol building, but political friction and questions about the legality of advertising on Capitol grounds stymied that plan.“I had to have a congressional bill signed by the House and the Senate,” Denker told IndyCar driver David Malukas in the promotional video. “I had the House, but I couldn’t get 60 votes in the Senate.”After speaking with Duffy, Trump agreed to sign an executive order greenlighting the D.C. IndyCar race without Congress, on the condition that the circuit moved away from the Capitol. The current track runs along the National Mall and Constitution Avenue by several of the Smithsonian museums.Race cars will speed around the circuit beginning Friday. The race itself will take place on Sunday.Categories / Politics, SportsSubscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads