A man used to orchestrating successful drives has been named honorary pace car driver for the Indianapolis 500.
Indiana University football coach Curt Cignetti will pace the 33-driver field at May’s Indy 500, driving a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X after he led IU to an undefeated national championship season.
“Coach Cignetti will have our field in a special victory lap formation as he leads the stars of the NTT IndyCar Series to the green flag at this year’s Indy 500,” IndyCar president J. Douglas Boles said. “His Hoosiers have been nothing short of remarkable, and their national championship run inspired our entire state. He’s the perfect choice to drive the Chevrolet pace car, and I know his introduction on race day will bring out a special roar of appreciation from our crowd.”
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The Indy 500 and the events leading up to it in May are practically a state holiday in Indiana, and Cignetti’s role is no surprise considering the buzz surrounding him there. Cignetti is the first NCAA Division-I head coach to start the season 10-0 in consecutive seasons at different schools (at James Madison in 2023, then Indiana in 2024) and the first ever to win back-to-back Associated Press Coach of the Year awards (the past two seasons at Indiana).
In February, Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stern reported Boles was working to get members of the championship team as part of the Indy 500 festivities.
“We will definitely have components of that national championship team as part of our celebration,” Boles said then. “Exactly which ones, we will be announcing in the next few weeks.”
The Indy 500 grand marshal (who issues the command for drivers to report to their cars) and honorary starter (who waves the green flag) have yet to be named, so it’s unknown whether Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, Indiana’s quarterback who’s now the projected No. 1 pick in next month’s NFL Draft, would attend.
Like the other honorary race official roles, the Indy 500 pace car driver is often a celebrity (Michael Strahan and Ken Griffey Jr. had the role in the past two years) or notable local sports figure (Indiana Pacers players Tyrese Haliburton and Victor Oladipo have had the honors at previous 500s, along with many former race car drivers).
Roger Penske, the 89-year-old owner of IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, gives the traditional “Drivers, start your engines” command each year.