Will Power IndyCar on pit road at Phoenix Raceway before the 2026 Good Ranchers 250

Phoenix Raceway by the Numbers: IndyCar's 2027 Return

September 25, 2026

Sep 25, 2026 · 5 min read·

Phoenix Raceway by the Numbers: IndyCar's 2027 Return to the Desert Oval

Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Track Preview - where we take one track apart with real numbers before anybody turns a wheel. The season is over, so this week is a between-races data feature on the oval that gave IndyCar its wildest race of 2026.

The Short Version

IndyCar goes back to Phoenix Raceway on Saturday, March 13, 2027, as round two of the season and the 66th Indy car race at the track. The last one was the best oval race of 2026: 565 on-track passes, a record for IndyCar at Phoenix, and Josef Newgarden chasing down Kyle Kirkwood with seven laps left. This is a flat one-mile oval with a kink in the frontstretch, and it produces more passing than tracks twice its size. Here are the numbers that explain why.

A One-Mile Oval That Does Not Race Like One

Phoenix Raceway sits in Avondale, Arizona, west of the city, and it opened in 1964 as a track built for Indy cars. It is one mile around with four turns, banked somewhere between 9 and 11 degrees depending on which corner you are in. That is flat. For comparison, most of the ovals fans picture when they think open-wheel racing carry double or triple that.

Flat banking means the corners do not hold the car for you. The driver has to slow the car, place it, and get back to the throttle without spinning the rear tires. Then there is the dogleg, the kink partway down the frontstretch that nobody else on the schedule has. It breaks up the straight and gives drivers one more place to be braver than the car next to them.

Phoenix Raceway IndyCar track stats card: one-mile oval, 9 to 11 degrees of banking, 250 laps, March 13 2027 — Phoenix Raceway by the numbers. Graphic: Happy Hour Racing.

The other thing that makes Phoenix race the way it does is length. At one mile, the leader reaches lapped traffic in a hurry. A 250-lap race at Phoenix means a driver is almost always looking at somebody's gearbox, and passing a lapped car at Phoenix is not a formality. That is how you end up with a pass count in the hundreds.

Phoenix Raceway one-mile oval and its frontstretch dogleg viewed from Monument Hill in Avondale Arizona — The whole track from Monument Hill. You can see the kink in the frontstretch that nothing else on the IndyCar schedule has. (Photo: Marine 69-71, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

565 Passes: What Happened When IndyCar Came Back

The 2026 Good Ranchers 250 ran on March 7, 2026, IndyCar's first trip to Phoenix since 2018. It produced 565 on-track passes, 323 of them for position, and 18 lead changes. All of those are IndyCar records at the track. There were only four cautions, so nearly all of that movement was earned rather than handed over on a restart.

David Malukas put his Team Penske car on pole with a two-lap run of 41.0530 seconds and led 73 laps, more than anyone. He finished third. Josef Newgarden pitted for fresh tires under the last caution on lap 207 while the leaders stayed out, ran Kyle Kirkwood down, and took the lead on lap 244. He won by 1.7937 seconds for the 33rd win of his career. Pato O'Ward was fourth and Marcus Armstrong fifth.

Fans showed up for it too. The race drew 1,247,000 viewers on Fox. For a one-mile oval that had been off the schedule for eight years, that is the whole argument for going back.

Who Wins at Phoenix

Phoenix has a long memory. The first Indy car race here ran on March 22, 1964, and A.J. Foyt led all 100 laps of the Phoenix 100 at an average of 107.536 mph. It was the 18th win of a career that ended with an all-time record 67. The modern list is shorter and heavily Penske.

Past IndyCar winners at Phoenix Raceway from 2002 to 2026 with most all-time Phoenix Indy car wins — The last eight IndyCar winners at Phoenix, plus the all-time win list. Graphic: Happy Hour Racing.

Six of the last eight Phoenix winners drove for Team Penske. Josef Newgarden has won the last two IndyCar races here, in 2018 and 2026, which are eight years apart. Scott Dixon won the 2016 return and Simon Pagenaud won in 2017. Go back further and the all-time leader is Al Unser with six Phoenix wins, ahead of Gordon Johncock with five.

One more number worth keeping: the one-lap track record belongs to Helio Castroneves at 192.631 mph, set in qualifying in 2016. The 2026 cars did not come close. Malukas averaged about 179 mph over his two pole laps. The 2016 aero kits made more downforce than anything on the grid today, so that record is going to sit there a while.

What March 13, 2027 Looks Like

IndyCar opens 2027 at St. Petersburg on March 7, then comes straight to Phoenix on Saturday, March 13, then goes to Arlington on March 21. Three races on three straight weekends is only the fifth time that has happened in IndyCar's 118 years, and it is the second year in a row.

The bigger piece is who else is there. Phoenix is running IndyCar and NASCAR on the same weekend with Fox Sports, which puts open-wheel cars in front of a stock car crowd that would not otherwise buy a ticket to see them.

IndyCar-NASCAR Doubleheader weekend in Phoenix!
- RACER (@RACERHQ) August 5, 2026

The Bottom Line

Phoenix is the flattest oval on the IndyCar schedule, and in 2026 it out-passed everything else on the calendar. Round two of 2027 is on Saturday, March 13, and if the last one is any guide, it is the race to circle first.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the 2027 IndyCar race at Phoenix Raceway?

Saturday, March 13, 2027. It is round two of the season and the 66th Indy car race at the track.

Who won the last IndyCar race at Phoenix?

Josef Newgarden won the 2026 Good Ranchers 250 on March 7, 2026, by 1.7937 seconds over Kyle Kirkwood. It was his second straight IndyCar win at Phoenix after 2018.