A Meme Lord's Guide to the Indy 500

The Indianapolis 500 is an American institution and the cars themselves are a fascinating study in consumerism. When there are 34 cars attempting to qualify there just aren’t enough Pennzoils and Verizons to go around. Some teams have to get a little more creative with their sponsorship package. These are the most meme-worthy results for 2025.

‍

Macho Man

Graham Rahal was born into the sport and has been a driver for 17 years. Graham is back for his second year cosplaying as a construction worker. I guess in the same way that we normal folk dream of being race car drivers, race car drivers dream of a job in the trades. Or maybe he's just adding construction worker to soldier and fry cook in his weird one-man Village People tribute.

‍

I Can Has Sponsor?

Nothing says meme like a Dogecoin IndyCar. I said DogeCOIN, not the other thing. Devlin DeFrancesco returns to the 500 in a hypercolor blockchain fever dream. Whether you’re a shiba inu lover, a crypto bro, or enjoy dismantling the government the #30 Rahal Letterman Lanigan machine is your rocketship to the moon.

‍

The Champagne of Sponsors

Jacob Abel will drive a gorgeous Miller High Life car for Dale Coyne Racing. To the casual observer this may not seem like a big deal but its been a long time since a major beer sponsor covered an IndyCar. (Coors Light Dixon/Lazier 2002?) This is a grave injustice as approximately 1.1 million beers are consumed at the track on race day alone. Rookie Abel seems like an odd choice until you learn that he is from Louisville, Kentucky and the car is a tribute to fellow Louisville native Danny Sullivan on the 40th anniversary of his famous “Spin-and-Win” of 1985. Jacob is definitely capable of one of those two things.

‍

Prema-ture

Prema is a juggernaut in the European junior formulae, helping younger drivers climb the ladder to Formula 1. In fact 7 of the 20 current F1 drivers drove with Prema in a lower series, including championship points leader Oscar Piastri. This year Prema decided to hard launch their IndyCar program with no previous experience or partner teams. They probably wish they hadn’t.

The Prema IndyCar experiment thus far has been a dumpster fire. They seemed to think they could just pour their nonna’s red sauce all over these crude American cars and give us yanks a taste of authentic Italian racecraft. Their saving grace was swiping coveted IndyCar Technical Director Michael Cannon away from A.J. Foyt Racing in the offseason to run their kitchen but he bailed before the season saying “In very short order, I felt that the majority of my advice & counsel was being disregarded or simply ignored.” Mamma Mia!

So far Prema has roasted their radios in St. Pete, sautéed their car (and nearly their driver) at Thermal, and seemingly went on holiday for the month of May, with the 83 car missing all of practice for the Indy GP and both cars missing most of Tuesday's practice for the Indy 500, running 22 total laps between their 2 cars.

IndyCar needs new teams to enter the series and find success and I sincerely hope they stick it out. An average finish of 21.4 won’t cut it. Prema’s seemingly unlimited budget can only benefit the quality of competition long-term but every so often the world needs a reminder that IndyCar is hard. Prema has been served a nice slice of humble pizza pie. Buon appetito!

‍

My Favorite Color Is America

It’s a long-standing tradition in IndyCar that the driver with the most Italian sounding name is not Italian. Santino Ferrucci is as American  as apple pie and medical debt and don’t you forget it! Not like you could forget, his A.J. Foyt machine is once again wrapped in the American flag. What could be more patriotic than that?

I’ll tell you what’s more patriotic, the U.S. constitution!

Sting Ray Robb (yes, that is his government name) Payette, Idaho’s favorite son is driving a car clothed in this nation’s most sacred document, the constitution. Well, the preamble at least, you can’t fault them for not fitting the entire thing on a sidepod.

Uncle Sam will have a tough time picking a favorite next week but, in the context of the country’s largest Memorial Day weekend gathering, more is always better.

‍

One Last Meme

What If you had a sponsor who could help you Overcome the challenge of the Indy 500? They could inspire you to finish Higher, reap the rewards of your years of Sacrifice. Stand Here With You in front of 400 Thousand Faces. What’s This Life For if not for chasing your dreams? You’ve Weathered the storm, the Rain, so take One Last Breath and strap yourself into the car. That potential is Inside Us All and its a Beautiful thing when you can realize it. It’s Time. Are You Ready? Wash Away Those Tears and go. Will you accept this new sponsor With Arms Wide Open? It’s not just some Faceless Man, it’s Creed.

Yep. There’s a Creed car.

‍

Day 1 of Indy 500 Qualifying will be air Saturday at 10:00AM EST on FS1 and Day 2 will be broadcast on FOX Sunday at 3:00 EST.

‍

The comment section is on X @BenScruggsGP