SPEED with Harvick and Buxton via YouTube If I overheard someone talking about Jeff Gordon racing wheel-to-wheel with Bill Elliott, Bobby Labonte, and Rusty Wallace, I would assume it was a conversation about ’90s NASCAR. As it turns out, though, those icons of American motorsport competed in IROC Pontiac Trans Ams and Firebirds just last weekend. In the year of our Lord 2026. On the streets of our nation’s capital. Why did nobody mention this beforehand? Now, I’m sure somebody did, but I work in the car media biz and only heard about it after Fox—the race’s broadcast partner—reported the results. I obviously could have missed the pre-race hype, but as I pulled up the highlights on YouTube, I saw tons of commenters saying the same: The IROC competition ran ahead of the IndyCar Freedom 250, billed as Washington D.C.’s first-ever street course race. That event was heavily publicized, as it even reached mainstream outlets like Fox News and CNN. It was a 147-lap event won by Kyle Kirkwood, and while he’s an accomplished driver, you’d have a much better chance of getting someone like my uncle to tune in to a race involving “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville.” Just to be clear, I’m not trashing IndyCar at all. I love the series. But when we’re talking about marketability, nostalgia wins big. And it was an old-fashioned IROC race, where drivers from different disciplines competed in similar machinery; Indy 500 winners Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves were among the field, as was road racer Tommy Kendall. Gordon ended up winning both 10-lap races, with Kurt Busch finishing in second each time. (Castroneves and Kanaan stood on the podium’s third step in the first and second contests, respectively.) That sort of thing tends to happen when you put Gordon in a car prepped by Ray Evernham, one of the most dominant driver-and-crew-chief duos ever. Imagine how many people would have been talking about this race if it happened in the mid-2000s. IndyCar I, for one, love seeing the stick-shift V8s from the late ’90s and early ’00s roaring down Pennsylvania Avenue. And even though Gordon is 55 now, he’s still super fast. Heck—Bill Elliott is 70, and I doubt he thought twice about climbing inside the car. Hopefully, this isn’t a one-and-done event, and we’ll get to see these drivers go at it again. But I’m not holding my breath. I’m happy for the folks who got to see it! It simply would’ve been better had others caught wind of the race before it happened. Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com
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