Ghost car, cartoons, video game graphics: Inside Fox Sports' vision for IndyCar broadcasts

Ghost car, cartoons, video game graphics: Inside Fox Sports’ vision for IndyCar broadcasts

Posted by author February 27, 2025 Sports

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Fox Sports lead IndyCar producer Pam Miller says the network is aiming to bring more technology and storytelling to its IndyCar coverage.
Miller says Fox Sports plans to pull elements it loves from its own modern-day NASCAR broadcasts, as well as ESPN’s F1 broadcasts, to give IndyCar it’s own unique identity on TV.

Evidenced by the network’s decisions in recent months of taking some of the successful and fan-favorite elements of NBC’s IndyCar broadcasts of old — holding onto James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell in booth and Kevin Lee and Georgia Henn e berry on pit road, for starters — while adding their own affinity for flash and flare with their ever popular driver-centric commercials, Fox Sports has every aim to take its latest addition to its pro sports lineup to new heights in 2025 and beyond.

That story formally begins at 3 p.m. Friday with the first practice of the season at the Streets of St. Pete, where Fox’s on-air crew will work together for the first time and where the Fox Sports directing and production personnel, and folks working for IMS Productions, will begin to work to become a cohesive unit. With that, IndyCar fans tuning into FS1 will get their first taste for how Fox Sports plans to put its own spin on IndyCar broadcasts, all of which will air either on cable (practice and qualifying) or network TV (all 17 races) for the length of this multi-year deal.

This week, IndyStar spoke with Fox Sports’ lead IndyCar producer Pam Miller, who brings more than 20 years of motorsports producing experience to the trucks this weekend — including several years of CART and IndyCar work early in her career — to get a sense of her vision for IndyCar’s next chapter on television.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity:

Nathan Brown, IndyStar: IndyCar fans have grown used to a certain style, format and use of technology over the last six years and the series was exclusively broadcast by NBC. How does Fox plan to differentiate its IndyCar broadcasts from the previous era?

Pam Miller, Fox Sports: “I think you’re going to see our brand of storytelling, which is a mix of personality, entertainment and technology. You’ll see a lot more technology in those shows. IndyCar is a cool sport, and we want to bring that vibe back and tell the stories of the personalities with the latest and greatest technology. You’ll see things like the ‘ghost car.’ You’ll see telemetry presented a different way. You’ll see a lot of different applications that you’ve seen in some other motorsports but with a Fox twist.”

IndyStar: How do you plan to begin rolling out Fox’s own stamp on the IndyCar broadcasts?

Miller: “We’ll be building through the weekend and building every week. What you see in St. Pete, every week you’ll see us build upon what we started. Every week we’ll evolve in a different direction and keep building with our toolbox and different things we’re experimenting with will continue to progress through the whole season. Obviously focusing on (the Indy 500) a lot, but over the 17 weeks of the season, you’ll see us progress with all kinds of storytelling tools and experiment along the way and have some fun and try some things.”

IndyStar: What of those new tools and techniques can fans expect to see right out of the gate for Friday’s afternoon practice?

Miller: “First of all, ghost car, the fact you’ve got these amazing drivers being so heroic driving in these amazing cars and seeing just how narrow the tub is and how they have to drive these cars, showing the heroics of these guys. That technology, ghost car especially, shows how brave you have to bet to do the speeds they do and dive into the corners the way they do. I think that alone is going to be an eye-opener. The telemetry, we plan on using a heads-up display which is kind of what you see in Formula 1. It’s basically our spin on it, and I think that’ll show a different angle for the fans as well. I think they’re going to be excited to get a peak at what these guys do at such a high level every week.”

IndyStar: You’ve spent a lot of time producing NASCAR races, and Fox at large has a lengthy history broadcasting the sport. What, if any, elements of those broadcasts are you guys planning to bring over to your work in IndyCar?

Miller: “Our goal is to entertain and educate people on what the sport is. You’ll see a cutaway car to explain the car each week. Some of our storytelling tools about the different drivers and how we tell their stories, whether it’s through bios or montages or in-race radio interviews, you’ll see all that coming back here to IndyCar. There’s a lot of great things we’ve developed in the last 25 years in NASCAR that we’d love to try in IndyCar, and luckily for us the drivers and the teams and the management of IndyCar have been so open to these ideas that we’d like to try all of it. Obviously not all of it at St. Pete, but through the rest of the season.”

IndyStar: How would you describe the look and feel of the graphics package you guys have put together for IndyCar?

Miller: “The whole idea is to give IndyCar its own identity, so it’s a little bit of Esports with a little bit of grunge. It’s a really energetic look … It’s a refreshing look. I would say it’s a mashup of the best things you love about gaming, Esports and what you’ve already seen in our shows. It’s a really refreshing, high-energy paced-look.”

IndyStar: I know there’s a lot of curious fans waiting for this answer: Will you guys be bringing over the driver cartoon elements into your IndyCar broadcasts?

Miller: “I think I’m going to leave some surprises for the weekend. Maybe they may want to watch and see what we do.”

IndyStar: As part of IndyCar’s new deal with Fox that has all 17 races on network TV, I know all race broadcast windows (outside the Indy 500) will be 2½ hours in length, different from those on NBC that could be as short as two hours and as long as 3½. With that uniformity, and at times shorter windows, in mind, how do you plan to coordinate or prioritize pre-race vs. post-race air time?

Miller: “We’re trying to be consistent. I think circumstances will dictate, but for the most part, we want to set up the race and get fans to racing sooner than later. We’ll take time to tell the stories we need and pay off the stories on the backend of the race that we need, but we want to try to come up with a way to be consistent for the fans.”