President Donald Trump swapped the Oval Office for pit lane on Sunday, August 23, 2026, waving the green flag with First Lady Melania Trump at his side to start the Freedom 250 Grand Prix — the first professional road race, and the first IndyCar event, ever staged in the nation’s capital.
When the noise died down, 27-year-old American Kyle Kirkwood stood at the top of the podium, having piloted Andretti Global’s No. 27 Honda in Sam’s Club colors. The victory was the seventh of his IndyCar career, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy waved the checkered flag over it.
A Ceremonial Lap in The Beast
Before the field turned a wheel in anger, the president and first lady circled the 1.7-mile, seven-turn street course ringing the National Mall in The Beast, the heavily armored presidential limousine. As they reached the finish line, Trump’s new Air Force One passed overhead, capping a run of flyovers that also included a B-2 bomber.
Trump arrived to cheers and greeted drivers and top IndyCar officials before climbing into the limo. The green flag was placed in his hands by Col. Paris Davis and Command Sgt. Maj. Matt Williams, both of whom have been awarded the Medal of Honor, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum gave the command to fire up the engines. The president had done a version of this before, taking ceremonial laps in The Beast at the Daytona 500 in 2020 and 2025.
Monuments at 190 Mph
Washington enforces the lowest speed limit in the country at 55 mph, a rule that took the day off. The 25 drivers in the field reached speeds of up to 190 mph as they blurred past the Washington Monument and the museums of the National Mall, with the US Capitol framing the finish line. The distance was no accident: 147 laps adding up to 250 miles, a nod to America’s 250th birthday.
The pavement was rough, and the drivers knew it. Spanish championship points leader Alex Palou called the potholed circuit a blast to drive while warning of “massive bumps that are going to spice things up,” he told reporters beforehand. Palou, the pre-race favorite, later hit the wall and broke his front wing. Driver David Malukas crashed and had his car carried away, and another car spun during a caution lap. IndyCars have no power steering, so drivers muscled through every turn themselves, and unlike Formula 1, where teams build their own machinery, IndyCar engines come only from Chevrolet or Honda.
A Heavy Lift for the City
Organizers said about 140,000 people were expected to attend, with many general admission tickets handed out free through a public lottery. Premium packages were another story, going for $5,000 a pair.
Preparing the capital took an enormous logistical and security effort. Crews resurfaced streets, bolted down manholes and closed roads across the city; ahead of the weekend, intermittent road closures were set to shut the Arlington Memorial Bridge and an area near the Lincoln Memorial on Thursday. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport sat under a three-hour airspace closure to make room for the military flyover, and the National Gallery of Art ran tests to determine whether engine vibrations might endanger its collection.
Uncle Sam Hats and a Thumbs-Down
Race day belonged to the celebration rather than the complaints. Spectators packed the fences in Uncle Sam hats, one turned up costumed as the Statue of Liberty, and families made the trip from other states for a day they doubted would come around again. Not everyone was charmed: one woman flashed a thumbs-down as the presidential motorcade rolled by.
American driver Josef Newgarden said racing past the monuments carried real weight for him, a one-of-a-kind moment on the country’s 250th anniversary. “It’s a beautiful city, and it’s very surreal,” he told the BBC.
Trump told Fox Sports that others had chased the race for two decades and that this version turned out bigger and better, adding that the forecasters who promised rain all week had it wrong. He also said Roger Penske, chairman of Penske Corporation, tried 211 times over 20 years to land the event before he closed the deal in 15 minutes. OutKick columnist Zach Dean, no IndyCar devotee by his own account, wrote that the series nailed the weekend — and flagged that oddly precise 211 with a wink.
The Grand Prix capped a summer of semiquincentennial programming. Trump formed Freedom 250 as a public-private partnership behind the race, the July 4 fireworks display, the Great American State Fair and the Ultimate Fighting Championship event staged on the White House lawn in June; a bipartisan congressional commission, America 250, was set up in 2016 to plan anniversary events. In July, the White House hosted a Grand Prix showcase featuring Palou, Malukas and driver Felix Rosenqvist. Freedom 250 chairman Bud Denker said beforehand that the weekend was not about him or about IndyCar, but about the country.
For all the speed, the tight street course was still no oval: at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2022, driver Conor Daly topped 240 mph during a practice run. And in the same weekend’s NASCAR race at Loudon, New Hampshire, drivers Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace fought it out, with Blaney taking the win and Wallace falling just short.