Sports

IndyCar’s Washington Race Merchandise Went Viral for All the Wrong Reasons

By Curtis Jones · May 9, 2026

The shirt was designed to promote IndyCar’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix, a new race scheduled for August in Washington, D.C. — near the Lincoln Memorial, around the National Mall, as part of the country’s 250th anniversary of independence celebrations. Someone at IndyCar thought a graphic of Abraham Lincoln wearing a motor racing helmet was a good idea. They were probably right about that part.

The slogan they put on it was different.

ONE NATION, the shirt read at the top. ONE RACE at the bottom.

The intent, clearly, was a play on IndyCar being a racing series — one nation, one race, the Freedom 250. Abraham Lincoln wearing a helmet fit the theme. The shirt was posted to IndyCar’s online store on Wednesday. The comments section erupted within minutes. The shirt was pulled within hours.

IndyCar’s statement was brief: “A shirt was removed from IndyCar’s online store following feedback from customers. We understand that some individuals found its phrasing concerning and therefore have remedied the situation.”

The problem, once seen, could not be unseen. “ONE RACE” — printed beneath an image of Abraham Lincoln, the president who led the Union through the Civil War and whose Emancipation Proclamation began the legal dismantling of slavery in the United States — reads as a statement about racial uniformity in a way that the racing context does not automatically override. The Lincoln Memorial connection compounds it: Lincoln is depicted at his most iconic American monument, in a context that evokes his most historically charged legacy.

A flurry of social media responses captured both camps immediately — the ones who said it was obviously offensive and the ones who said it was obviously about racing and the outrage was overblown. That split is precisely why the shirt went as viral as it did.

The Freedom 250 Grand Prix is scheduled for August 22-23, 2026. IndyCar racers will pass prominent Washington landmarks including, yes, the Lincoln Memorial. The event is part of the broader America250 celebration marking the nation’s semiquincentennial. Race organizers presumably hope the next piece of promotional merchandise will generate fewer headlines.

The replacement merch has not been announced.