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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
Earlier this year, right smack in the middle of the month of May, on a day located somewhere between Formula One‘s Miami Grand Prix, the NASCAR All-Star Race and the Indianapolis 500, I was with my family in Paris. We were strolling the aisles of a pop-up museum located in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, enveloped in the noise of construction as grandstands furiously rose along the banks of the River Seine ahead of the Summer Olympics, then still two months away.
This “Spot ’24” museum was dedicated to the sports that will either make their Olympic debuts in the streets and waters of France or are still new to the roster, including skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing, 3-on-3 basketball and breakdancing. One wall displayed the complete rundown of the 32 sports that will be in Paris, awarding a total 329 medals in everything from badminton and boxing to table tennis and taekwondo.
After reading that extensively exhaustive list, my daughter asked a very logical question and one that I have asked aloud every four years of life.
“Why isn’t auto racing in the Olympics? They have everything else.”
Just imagine it. While LeBron James and his NBA colleagues hoop it up, Simone Biles flies through the air, and Alexandre Lacazette leads the home team up and down the pitch, what if a red-white-and-blue-uniformed Kyle Larson was battling a Dutch-flag-draped Max Verstappen at Magny-Cours? Or Scott Dixon, his helmet decorated with the stars of New Zealand, running door-to-door with the Union Jack-painted machine of Lewis Hamilton, two motorsport GOATS fighting for the Turn 1 hole shot at Circuit Paul Ricard?
Close your eyes and picture the podium. Ryan Blaney wiping tears from his eyes, a gold medal around his neck as Old Glory is raised behind him and “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays, standing alongside silver medalist Álex Palou and bronze champion Lando Norris, the Spaniard and the Brit.
I mean, why are we not doing this?!
Two-driver teams representing nations from around the globe. F1 winners, Indy 500 champions, legends from stock cars, sports cars, super cars, rally cars, you name it, qualifying and racing identically prepared racing rides, run on an already-established road or street course — which is as easy to find in the French countryside as a castle or a vineyard. The format follows the framework of every Olympic track event or American short track, with heat races to determine the starting field for the final event. Heck, you could do it all in one day, two tops.
“There is nothing like the feeling of walking into a room and seeing what feels like every great racer from every great racing series in the world all in the same place at the same time,” recalls Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champ. He is speaking of both the 24 Hours of Daytona and Le Mans, but also an event that already does pretty much exactly what we are proposing here: the wintertime-based Race of Champions.
Johnson’s first foray into ROC was in Spain in 2002, when he and Jeff Gordon teamed with MotoGP ace Colin Edwards to shock the European set and take the ROC Nations Cup. In 2007, he also competed in ROC in the Stade de France, the same stadium that will host track, rugby sevens and the closing ceremonies of the Paris Olympics.
“What’s funny is that at first everyone is so polite and so excited to be there; shaking hands and taking photos, all that stuff,” Johnson said. “But then as soon as the green flag drops, it’s on. Racers are racers.”
Auto racing already scales every border and connects every time zone this planet has to offer, from Talladega to Tokyo. Formula One has long run second only to soccer when it comes to year-round global reach. No matter where you are in the world, from high rises to mud huts, it is difficult to find another human among us who doesn’t know the names Daytona, Indianapolis or Le Mans. Why? Race cars.
The loudest argument from the defenders of the five rings will be that auto racing isn’t a true sport, that the competitors aren’t athletes because they rely more on their vehicles than on their bodies and minds. I have long found that the instant gag to those mouths is to put the naysayer in a two-seater racing machine and have them do a ride-along with a real racing driver. I have yet to see anyone, even the most decorated stick-and-ball athlete, climb out the window of that experience still clinging to that uneducated belief with their now-shaking hands.
Also, since the Games of the First Olympiad in 1896, medals have been awarded for sailing. I’m no yachtsman, but I’m pretty sure that you need a vehicle for that sport.
You say it flies in the face of history? Nope. Do your research. The OG Olympics were first held in Greece 2,800 years ago. Beginning with the 25th Olympiad in 680 BC, four-horse chariot races were introduced. They banged wheels around the Hippodrome, a paperclip-shaped oval with three-quarter-mile straights and super-tight turns. Just call it the Greek Martinsville. Later, they added mule cart races, the Ancient Olympics equivalent to the Craftsman Truck Series.
You have event location questions? What? You think there has to be a street course constructed on Avenue des Champs-Élysées, rattling the scaffolding at Notre Dame and chattering Mona Lisa’s teeth inside the Louvre? Nope. Spoiler alert: Olympic events don’t have to be held within the actual host city. In fact, nowhere near it. These Games alone will feature surfing in Teahupo’o, Tahiti, part of the French Polynesians and a scant 9,800 miles from Paris.
Environmental concerns? We are entering the hybrid/electric-vehicle age, with some nations ahead of others in that development. But we will leave that up to the IMOC as to which powerplant to use. By the way, that’s the International Motorsports Olympic Committee. We envision it as a boardroom with Roger Penske, Rick Hendrick, Toto Wolff, Ford CEO Jim Farley and the like. It’ll either be the greatest meeting ever or no one will leave the room alive. Also, I was just on the Seine. It’s pretty, but there’s nothing environmental about it. I’d rather drink from a bottle of Quaker State 5W30.
As for what exactly the Olympic chariots would look like, this is also not a difficult solution, although it will cost some cash. Once each nation determines who its representatives will be, they will be put behind the wheel of identically built and prepared full-bodied machines, something in the stock car/sports car family. Who would build those cars?
Well, look no further than an event that happened just last weekend at Connecticut’s Lime Rock Park. That’s where Ray Evernham, the NASCAR Hall of Famer who got his start as a mechanic in IROC — the International Race of Champions — orchestrated a reunion of cars and stars from IROC’s past. From 1984 to 2006, racers from around the world competed in IROC, championships earned by everyone from Mark Donohue and Mario Andretti to Dale Earnhardt and Al Unser Jr., their fellow competitors ranging from James Hunt and Richard Petty to Emerson Fittipaldi and A.J. Foyt.
IROC is back! 🏁#IROC #InternationalRaceofChampions #LimeRockPark pic.twitter.com/wwCvOmIOqp
— IROC (@irocofficial) July 19, 2024
It was Evernham who conjured up the IROC revival, and he has been very open about the fact that he would be keeping an eye on the interest around the vintage car event, saying earlier this summer: “We’ll watch it all and then we’ll reassess and see where we are on how much excitement there is about this, and then see exactly where we go or how far we go with it.”
He said the same about the creation of his thrilling-but-now-defunct SRX series that pitted racers from multiple disciplines on legendary American short tracks. SRX was unapologetically created in the spirit of IROC. Just as this idea of Olympics auto racing would be remorselessly run in the tire tracks of IROC, ROC and SRX.
So, I called him this week. And, well … Ray … you interested?
“Well, I think this is 100% possible. In fact, I’ve already written a whole paper about this.”
Of course he did.
“I did. I sent it to NASCAR. It was a spec deal, a special car that will not be familiar to anybody really. it would be a mix of several different types of cars and could run in a very small stadium if you wanted to.”
Like, chariots?!
“Yes, but it’s more than just a driver. It’s the whole team, from that country. The crew chief or lead engineer, whatever you call it, and the crew is actually part of the show as well. So, a national team would be 10 or 12 people, not just a couple of drivers. I know a lot of what they did with rallycross, X Games stuff and things like that. That’s the direction.”
Awesome! So, what’s holding us back?
“It just costs so much money. The Olympic nations are already barely raising enough money to send their athletes to go compete. With any race car deal, people will always ask me, ‘Ray, can you do this?’ Listen, I feel like I can do anything, or at least I think I can. I just need someone to tell me how much time and money I have to do it.”
Call me crazy, call Ray Evernham crazy, but we call it dreaming, and we also call it possible. When I pitched my World Series of Motorsport idea nearly a decade ago, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway hosting every major racing series in the same week, y’all called me crazy then, too. Then Indianapolis Motor Speedway totally stole my infield dirt track idea.
All I know is that as Paris approaches, every driver to whom I have mentioned the idea of Olympic motorsports — from NASCAR to IndyCar to sports cars to rally cars to you name it — initially scoffed. But then they grew very quiet, no doubt picturing that gold medal around their necks as the national anthem echoed in their heads.
Racers, start your passports.