NASCAR: Ex-Furniture Row exec Joe Garone lands new job

Former Furniture Row Racing president and general manager Joe Garone has been hired as the chief operating officer at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Fountain, Colorado.

Garone worked for Barney Visser’s NASCAR Cup team for more than a decade until the Denver-based No. 78 shut down after the 2018 season. Last year, Garone was the president of Spire Motorsports’s No. 77 team, which won a rain-shortened race at Daytona International Speedway with Justin Haley.

According to a release from the track, Garone “will continue his relationship with Spire Sports & Entertainment to obtain sponsorship for both Spire and PPIR events and programs.” The Denver native will be focused on expanding PPIR’s business “with music and motorsports-style festivals.”

Garone also will bring the Falci Adaptive Motorsports to a new year-round home at the track. The program, which helps paraplegic, quadriplegic and disabled individuals drive Cup cars without hands and feet, had received race cars from Visser and Furniture Row Racing.

“I’m beyond excited to return to Colorado and play a key role in enhancing the unique events already taking place at Pikes Peak International Raceway,” Garone said in a release. “Our goal is to build a strong foundation that will allow us to entice even larger talent to provide world-class entertainment for our audiences.”

Garone is the second key member of Furniture Row Racing’s 2017 championship team to make a recent move. In December, Cole Pearn, the crew chief for Martin Truex Jr., announced he was leaving NASCAR and his job at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Pikes Peak International Raceway, which includes a 1-mile oval, a 1.3-mile road course, a one-eighth of a mile drag strip and meeting space, once was the site of NASCAR and IndyCar races. The facility currently plays host to festivals, concerts and performance driving programs.

INDIANAPOLIS — The first Indy 500 victory for Josef Newgarden also was the richest in race history from a record 2023 purse of just more than $17 million.

The two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion, who continued his celebration Monday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway earned $3.666 million for winning the 107th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

The purse and winner’s share both are the largest in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

It’s the second consecutive year that the Indy 500 purse set a record after the 2022 Indy 500 became the first to crack the $16 million mark (nearly doubling the 2021 purse that offered a purse of $8,854,565 after a crowd limited to 135,000 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

The average payout for IndyCar drivers was $500,600 (exceeding last year’s average of $485,000).

Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske, whose team also fields Newgarden’s No. 2 Dallara-Chevrolet, had made raising purses a priority since buying the track in 2020. But Penske but was unable to post big money purses until the race returned to full capacity grandstands last year.

The largest Indy 500 purse before this year was $14.4 million for the 2008 Indy 500 won by Scott Dixon (whose share was $2,988,065). Ericsson’s haul made him the second Indy 500 winner to top $3 million (2009 winner Helio Castroneves won $3,048,005.

Runner-up Marcus Ericsson won $1.043 million after falling short by 0.0974 seconds in the fourth-closest finish in Indy 500 history.

The 107th Indy 500 drew a crowd of at least 330,000 that was the largest since the sellout for the 100th running in 2016, and the second-largest in more than two decades, according to track officials.

“This is the greatest race in the world, and it was an especially monumental Month of May featuring packed grandstands and intense on-track action,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said in a release. “Now, we have the best end card possible for the 107th Running of the Indianapolis 500: a record-breaking purse for the history books.”

Benjamin Pedersen was named the Indy 500 rookie of the year, earning a $50,000 bonus.

The race’s purse is determined through contingency and special awards from IMS and IndyCar. The awards were presented Monday night in the annual Indy 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis.

The payouts for the 107th Indy 500:

1. Josef Newgarden, $3,666,000
2. Marcus Ericsson, $1,043,000
3. Santino Ferrucci, $481,800
4. Alex Palou, $801,500
5. Alexander Rossi, $574,000
6. Scott Dixon, $582,000
7. Takuma Sato, $217,300
8. Conor Daly, $512,000
9. Colton Herta, $506,500
10. Rinus VeeKay, $556,500
11. Ryan Hunter‐Reay, $145,500
12. Callum Ilott, $495,500
13. Devlin DeFrancesco, $482,000
14. Scott McLaughlin, $485,000
15. Helio Castroneves, $481,500
16. Tony Kanaan, $105,000
17. Marco Andretti, $102,000
18. Jack Harvey, $472,000
19. Christian Lundgaard, $467,500
20. Ed Carpenter, $102,000
21. Benjamin Pedersen (R), $215,300
22. Graham Rahal, $565,500*
23. Will Power, $488,000
24. Pato O’Ward, $516,500
25. Simon Pagenaud, $465,500
26. Agustín Canapino (R), $156,300
27. Felix Rosenqvist, $278,300
28. Kyle Kirkwood, $465,500
29. David Malukas, $462,000
30. Romain Grosjean, $462,000
31. Sting Ray Robb (R), $463,000
32. RC Enerson (R), $103,000
33. Katherine Legge, $102,000

*–Broken down between two teams, $460,000 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, $105,500 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports

Joe Garone joins Pikes Peak International Raceway as COO

Winner Josef Newgarden earns $3.666 million from a record Indy 500 purse of $17 million