IndyCar’s season-finale Big Machine Music City Grand Prix has joined Arrow McLaren as an official team partner for the remainder of the 2024 NTT IndyCar Series season.
The partnership goes into effect immediately, and Big Machine branding will be present on the Arrow McLaren cars for the first time in tomorrow’s Indianapolis 500. Big Machine Music City Grand Prix will have representation on the cars of Pato O’Ward and Alexander Rossi throughout the season, and will be the primary sponsor on the No. 6 Chevrolet for the Milwaukee Mile doubleheader on Aug. 30-Sept. 1.
“Everything that Arrow McLaren and McLaren in general try and do is to be the most entertaining motorsports team in the world,” said McLaren CEO Zak Brown. “It’s a blend of sport and entertainment, and to bring together these two audiences, I think, is very exciting.
“Scott [Borchetta, Big Machine Music CEO] has a, a great vision for IndyCar. What he’s done for Nashville — and done for IndyCar in Nashville and really globally — is awesome. So to come together, both being promoters and very focused on the fan, at the end of the day, I think we’ll put together a good collective show and cap it off with hopefully competing for a championship in Nashville.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1408]
Borchetta took over operations of the Music City GP following the race’s move from downtown Nashville to Nashville Superspeedway, located approximately 35 miles from the city. Borchetta said that he still aims to incorporate a downtown festival element to the event, even if the race itself is not there.
“To kick off downtown on Friday, we will have the pit stop competition,” he said. “We will have our fourth annual Freedom Friday, we’re going to shut down Broadway and it’s going to be our biggest lineup yet. It’s going to be live and free on Freedom Friday. We’ll have the talent announcement coming pretty quick, but it’s going to be billed as the biggest album release party in the world.
“Then we’re going to have stages out at the superspeedway on both days. So we’ll have a full lineup with music. I’m proud a few of the things that we’ve already come up with with our [marketing] team. I’ll give you an example: for our billboards around town, especially keeping the in touch with Nashville, on the corner of First Avenue and Korean Veterans Boulevard, we have a wraparound of around the building. It says ‘At 175 miles an hour, you’re only 11.2 minutes away.’
“So wherever you are and see the billboards all around town… if you’re in Brentwood, ‘At 201 miles an hour, you’re only 9.1 minutes away.’ So we want everybody psychologically to realize it’s not that far away, and then to come back downtown on Saturday after qualifying and practice. It’s going to be rocking there as well. So we’re going to keep it feeling like Nashville all the way to the checkered flag.”
Borchetta also confirmed that the guitar trophy — a feature of IndyCar’s last visit to the venue in the 2000s — will return this year.