For Will Buxton, ‘No Race Comes Close’ To The Indy 500

Now 18 months on the job with FOX Sports as the lead commentator for the IndyCar series and the Indianapolis 500, Will Buxton has arguably become the series’ greatest advocate. In an exclusive with me for Forbes, Buxton goes through his evolution heading into the 110th running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing”.

Talking with Will Buxton is like talking to that kid who discovers racing for the first time. Racing isn’t work. Racing is a newborn passion for him again and again. There is a genuine love for motorsports, with the passion coming through each and every time.

And while he has a bit of rock-star status due to his role as a key figure in Netflix’s Drive To Survive series and his tenure with Formula 1, Buxton is approachable and honest about where he’s at and about his continued education in IndyCar.

“I guess the biggest thing for me over the last 18 months has been the realization that so much of what I knew about Formula 1 had gone in by osmosis, whether that was as a kid watching it or working in the sport for 25 years,” Buxton says. “And while I’d always loved IndyCar, I hadn’t taken that kind of studious approach to it because I just enjoyed it as a fan. So what I realized last year, from early on, was that I had to do my normal job, which is building current knowledge and being on top of everything that’s happening in the moment, whilst also building a foundation of knowledge of the entire history. And this is a history of a sport that goes back far further than Formula One. It goes back over 100 years, rather than the 70-odd years of Formula One.”

That growing knowledge base is something he’ll need to lean on in a big way. FOX Sports has tapped over 60 hours of programming around the Indy 500. The investment by FOX Sports is extraordinary. Around 200 people are involved in setting up for the broadcast. There are 150+ mics used for audio. Some 70 cameras. There are helicopter shots and two drones. And all of it is pulled together with some 200 miles of fiber cabling. With FOX Sports investing in IndyCar, the 500 has near Super Bowl gravity for them.

But if there’s something that Buxton has learned heading into his second year broadcasting the Indy 500, it’s the magnitude of it all. From the 350,000 fans, to the pageantry, to what it means to the drivers. Given his experience across different racing disciplines, does anything exceed the Indy 500? While the pageantry of Le Mans is something to compare to, Buxton sees it as different, given its endurance racing over 24 hours and the massive circuit spreads the crowd out.

“Nothing comes close to the Indianapolis 500,” he says. “Everyone’s in each other’s pockets. The drivers all stay in their RVs at the track. There’s a community that exists that is unique to any other race on the IndyCar calendar, and unique to any other race in the world, because there is a community that exists between the drivers, and yet, at the same time, they all want that win so much.”

The magnitude of the 500 really became clear, not during the race itself, but afterward, during the post-race Victory Banquet for the winning driver.

“I’ve been fortunate to do, you know, some of the biggest races in the world. I’ve done the Triple Crown now — I’ve done Monaco or the F1 World Championship. I’ve done Le Mans, I’ve done the 500 — and nothing on earth prepared me for the disappointment, more than the joy of victory. It was the disappointment of failure that really ran home with me…. I met 32 drivers that night who were absolutely devastated, like some of them almost inconsolable, and yet they still had the grace to get up on stage and smile and give the winner their dues and their plaudits.”

That’s where Buxton understood that the Indianapolis 500 wasn’t just a race, but the gravity of what it means for some of them to spend an entire year working towards that one day and to come away with anything less than the win.

“For 32 drivers, for 32 teams, 32 pit crews, 32 sponsors, it’s absolute devastation, and I’d never experienced anything like that before,” Buxton said. “And while I’d always understood what it meant, I never truly got it until that moment.”

The Indianapolis 500 is scheduled for Sunday, May 24th. The grandstands are sold out, meaning local blackout of the race has been lifted. The race will start at 12:30 p.m. ET on FOX.