INDIANAPOLIS — When it comes to iconic names in sports, Roger Penske and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones certainly fit that category, although for much different reasons.
Penske is one of the most successful businessmen and industrialists in the world. In addition to his tremendous business success, Penske is the winningest team owner in Indianapolis 500 history with 20 victories in the world’s biggest race.
Jones is the owner of “America’s Team” — the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League.
It’s a team fans love, or even more fans that love to hate the “Lone Star” that represents the Dallas Cowboys.
Jones is the most visible, and often reviled, team owner in the NFL.
Penske’s public persona is much different than that of the bombastic Jones. Penske is much more reserved and dignified, the epitome of excellence in business and on the race track.
Penske and Jones are now partners, along with Ray Davis, owner of the Major League Baseball Texas Rangers, in one of the most exciting new projects for IndyCar.
It’s the Grand Prix of Arlington, a race that will debut on the NTT IndyCar Series schedule in March 2026.
From a marketing standpoint, the combination of IndyCar with the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers could be one of the greatest combinations of success since Penske purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from the Hulman George Family on Nov. 4, 2019.
“Roger, I must tell you this is almost a dream come true,” Jones said of the Grand Prix of Arlington. “I really don’t think I could have dreamed as big as our imagination was that we could be sitting here when we joined Arlington and all the great citizens of Arlington to build AT&T Stadium.
“I don’t think I ever could have imagined that we would be sitting on the stage today with these former great athletes.
“But I couldn’t have imagined sitting here today, with Roger Penske, one of my true role models about how to involve sports, and the fundamentals of sports and involve it in a way that it works, and it does the business that we see that is involved in sports today.
“I couldn’t have imagined it, Roger, to be sitting here with you.”
The Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas used to be fertile ground for the IndyCar Series. Texas Motor Speedway hosted IndyCar from 1997 to 2023, including two races per season in the early years, often in front of very large crowds.
It was tremendous racing with spectacular action and a presentation that made Texas proud.
But over time, attendance at TMS dwindled. That, combined with NASCAR moving its race date to the spring and IndyCar’s insistence to end the schedule around Labor Day, created a scenario where IndyCar at TMS no longer worked.
Penske, and Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles didn’t give up on Dallas/Fort Worth, however.
They went to work to find partners for a street race.
What they found has all the elements to become one of the biggest races on the IndyCar schedule, a 2.73-mile-long course that includes AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, and Globe Life Field, the Texas Rangers’ stadium.
Jones quickly indicated he wanted to be part of the deal.
“We jumped, the Dallas Cowboys jumped, to be with the Rangers, Ray Davis,” Jones said. “We jumped to be with the great city of Arlington. We jumped to get a chance to be a part of this great event.
“It’s never really been about the ones that are attending it, though. That stadium was built, our stadium next door was built, really not for the 100,000 that sit in it on Sundays. It was built for the 30 million people that watch it when our Michaels and the great John Madden would say, ‘Folks, you ought to be here. We ought to see this place. You ought to be a part of it.’
“Now, that’s going to happen here in Arlington, thanks to you, Roger, thanks to your great team, thanks to the work and the coordination that we’ve got here. Most of all, thank you, the representative of our fans and the people that really support this. This is a labor of love.
“The Dallas Cowboys are honored to join Roger Penske, the great FOX network, and join the Texas Rangers in the city of and bring an open-wheel racing, crying around these streets out here and going to town around a great sports capital of this country.”
For Penske, his relationship with Jones began two decades earlier when Penske was the chairman of the Super Bowl committee that brought the NFL’s biggest game to Detroit — Super Bowl XL on Feb. 5, 2006.
“We are so thrilled to have our brand next year brand and next to Jerry’s here in this great opportunity,” Penske said. “Jerry what can I say when it comes to our friendship?
“Let’s go back 22 years, and I was standing up at a mic like this, trying to pitch Jerry Jones to bring the Super Bowl to Detroit 22 years ago. And here I am today thanking Jerry and his family for giving us this opportunity to come here and race at Arlington.
“It’s magic.
“It’s an opportunity for us to showcase our sport around the world and certainly to bring the best racing to Arlington.
“I look at this this history an opportunity coming together No place in the United States can we race to have this kind of a community, a diverse community, but also sports fans.
“As my son Greg says, we’re going to have a lot of guests come into Arlington, so thanks for the opportunity.”
Roger Penske and Jerry Jones, along with Ray Davis of the Texas Rangers create a marketing combination that can power IndyCar to a Texas-sized success.