IndyCar Launches, Deletes Offensive “One Race” T-Shirt From Its Online Store
IndyCar pulled an officially licensed shirt after fans blasted its glaringly offensive slogan.
On the penultimate weekend of August, the streets around the National Mall will close for an event celebrating the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. The Freedom 250 Grand Prix will send race cars screaming down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Smithsonian, and around the National Archives. To mark the occasion, IndyCar also managed to approve a T-shirt with messaging so obviously disastrous it’s hard to understand how it made it through even the most basic review.
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The shirt (archived here) read: “One Nation, One Race.” That no one in the approval chain stopped to consider how that slogan can be interpreted is staggering enough. That it was officially licensed by IndyCar makes it worse. One can assume this was not a one-person mistake and was instead signed off on by multiple people, making this an organizational failure.
The timing only added to the ugliness. The shirt surfaced around Mexican IndyCar driver Pato O’Ward’s birthday. Last year, his car number was also “inadvertently” used in a Department of Homeland Security post about an Indianapolis immigration detention center.
The product description was also tone-deaf. It called the shirt the “perfect piece to wear!” and a “fun graphic tee” that was “going to be a piece that brings back great memories of this race.” When it first appeared, the shirt was listed for $50 before later being dropped to $19.99 and marked “sold out.”
Referring to the month IndyCar prepares for the Indianapolis 500 to run Memorial Day weekend, Reddit user u/persononthedl wrote, “What you really want is for your brand to get killed on social media at the start of your biggest month of the year. Great work everyone.” Another, u/IndycarFan65, said, “I have a small inkling this was in some way intentional,” while u/BvG_Venom mocked the approval process with, “Bunch of white guys in Indiana: ‘yeah, looks great.’” Several users said they had emailed the series to express their frustration that something this blatantly offensive had been allowed to go live at all.
Still, BlueSky user @tuckgraphics probably delivered the cleanest summary of the fiasco: “Oh my god. Indycar what are you doing.”
Eventually, someone at IndyCar realized the problem, but not before the shirt had been live long enough for social media to do what no one inside the company apparently could: identify an obvious disaster in plain sight. It reportedly took at least an hour for the shirt to be removed from the online store.
We have reached out to IndyCar for comment and will update this story when we receive a response.
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Having experience in many forms of the automotive industry, Justin Banner has done more than just write about cars. For more than 15 years, he's had experience working as an automotive service technician—including a stint as a Virginia State Inspector—service advisor, parts sales, and aftermarket parts technical advisor (a fancy way of saying he helped you on the phone when you had trouble fitting your brakes over your aftermarket wheels and the like). Prior to his tenure as a full-time editor, Justin worked as a freelance writer and photographer for various publications and as an automotive content creator on YouTube. He’s also covered multiple forms of motorsports ranging from Formula Drift, drag racing, and time attack, to NASCAR, short course off-roading, and open desert racing. He's best known for breaking down complex technical concepts so a layperson can more easily understand why technologies, repairs, and parts should matter to them. At MotorTrend, Justin is part of the news team covering breaking news and topics while also working as a judge for MotorTrend Of the Year events and other major comparison tests.
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