It's a big few days for TWG. For the first time, all but one of its current race teams – Andretti in IndyCar, Indy NXT and Formula E, Spire Motorsports in the NASCAR Truck and Cup Series, and Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA — will all be competing in the same country on the same weekend.
Chuck in a Major League Baseball game for the L.A. Dodgers against the Chicago Cubs and the Taupo Super 440 for the Walkinshaw Andretti United team in the Australian Supercars series — which are also part of the same group — and it's certainly a weekend to remember.
It's not unusual to see the U.S.-based arms of the operation all in action on the same day or weekend. With NASCAR competing almost every weekend, it's often in action when the Indy or IMSA programs are, but that's less frequent when it comes to the Formula E team, which will be appearing on home soil for the only time this year at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Saturday.
For the Andretti part of the business, a lot of attention will naturally be focused on IndyCar's Grand Prix of Long Beach, but that doesn't mean its Formula E team is an afterthought. Dan Towriss (TWG CEO) and Jill Gregory (COO) will be attending the Miami E-Prix this weekend, as well as visiting the other parts of the portfolio in action, underlining their commitment to the team and category on a weekend where others in a similar position might not embark on an East Coast swing when they have so much going on out West.
"We’re certainly very high profile," Andretti Formula E team principal Roger Griffiths tells RACER. "We’re the only world championship that the TWG group is actively involved in today, so I think we should be getting our equal share of focus. And I think that Dan and Jill recognize that, hence the effort they’re putting in to make their presence felt at each of these events."
They won't be the only ones collecting air miles this weekend. After their Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday, Spire's Rajah Caruth and Andres Perez de Lara will head to Homestead to take in the Formula E race, while Jake Dennis and Nico Mueller of the Formula E team will jet out of Miami on Saturday night to go to Long Beach, then onto the Dodgers game.
"It is very important for me to see the recognition of the Formula E program," says Griffiths. "It’s 11 years now that we’ve been doing Formula E, so it’s not a startup anymore. We’re an established team. We’re world championship winners. It is hard to go head to head with the Long Beach event — outside the 500 it’s probably the most popular IndyCar race there is, certainly from a sponsor perspective."
In racing at Homestead, it isn't just a rare case of Andretti's stars aligning in a unique motorsport syzygy, but it returns the team to a place etched into its history. Team namesake Michael Andretti won the second and third Grand Prix of Miami at the track in 1997 and ’98, while the team enjoyed further success there with Dan Wheldon winning twice in 2005 and ’06 (he added a third straight victory in 2007, albeit with Chip Ganassi Racing).
"Not only have we raced here, we've won," Griffiths points out. "A lot of memories here. I mean, unfortunately, it’s got some sad memories as well. I was here when Dana lost his life many, many years ago. So has etched itself in my own personal memory.
"I’ve spent many a happy or unhappy hour here testing both with sports cars and with IndyCar as well, so for me, this place is as close to home as any racetrack there is here in the United States."
Home races often bring up talk of pressure – and with Andretti's owners in attendance this weekend as well, plus the team's tough start to the season with three points finishes from a possible eight so far, plus the same number of retirements, that pressure might be justified, but Griffiths insists it's not something that'll affect the team.
"For me personally, coming to race in the U.S., you're only putting pressure on yourself if you allow that to happen," he says. "This race doesn't give us any more points than racing in Jeddah or racing in Mexico City, it's just the same. Yeah, we have a few more eyeballs on us from the ownership — they would dearly love us to be up there on the podium and hopefully the top step — but we approach it like any other race weekend.
"We know the guys have spent a lot of time analyzing where we were at in Jeddah in prior races, so hopefully we've come away with some new learnings."
