‘We Want to Meet People Where They Are’: Corn Farmers Embrace NASCAR

This summer, the motorsports version of the “Field of Dreams” will roar back to life. Just an hour from downtown Des Moines with a large cornfield surrounding the Iowa Speedway, Newton, Iowa, will once again host the two largest professional motorsports series in the United States: the IndyCar Series and NASCAR.

The NASCAR weekend Aug. 1-3 is especially important for the speedway and for Iowa farmers. For the second straight year, the Cup Series race will bear the name of the largest state corn grower organization — the Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol.

How this partnership came to be — and the impact it has had on the parties involved — is a story that begins in Iowa Speedway’s infancy. 

Beginnings

Since Iowa Speedway opened in 2006, Iowa Corn has been on the radar of racing bodies trying to stage events there. Iowa Corn CEO Craig Floss said that ahead of the first race, the speedway reached out to the association. At the time, though, none of the events at the speedway involved ethanol. Apart from state pride, there was no specific reason for the organization to jump in. 

Iowa Corn left the door open, however — and the 2007 IndyCar season just so happened to be when the series announced it would move to 100% fuel-grade ethanol. 

“[Iowa Speedway] approached us again and said, ‘Here’s what IndyCar wants to do. This could be one of their flagship races in Iowa. Would Iowa Corn reconsider and would you perhaps come in?’ ” Floss said. “We started working through it and as a farmer board, we decided, ‘Let’s give this a try. Let’s see how this might work.’ ”

Iowa Corn was in — and ready to be the title sponsor of the first top-division nationwide series to take place in the state since three races in 1915 and 1916 at racetracks in Burlington and Des Moines. (Back then, the races were hosted by the American Automobile Association (AAA).) 

Beginning with the 2007 Iowa Corn Indy 250, Iowa Corn was a title partner with the Speedway for 11 years under three different names. After the 2018 event, time was up from the ICGA’s point of view. Floss said the partnership had run its course and had been a success for the group’s farmer members — and importantly, it was no longer the organization’s only foray into motorsports. 

Ethanol’s Motorsports Expansion

In late 2010, NASCAR announced its intention to begin running an E15 fuel blend (Sunoco Green) in all three of its nationwide series, including the Cup Series. This move also kicked off a partnership with Growth Energy, and American Ethanol branding became an ever-present sight in the sport. American Ethanol and Get Bioethanol branding served as the title sponsor for multiple races, and a further partnership with Richard Childress Racing has seen the famous No. 3 Chevrolet car sponsored by the initiative on numerous occasions. 

Floss said that Childress in particular has been a visible proponent of Growth Energy and ethanol as a whole, appearing in front of the Senate Agriculture Committee in 2014, and other occasions, for the ethanol industry. 

(In Dec. 2024, it was reported that the recognizable green Get Bioethanol ring situated at the fuel port of the stock cars would be going away from the 2025 season onward.)

A Speedway Reborn

In 2023, Iowa Speedway was navigating the second year of its new main event — an IndyCar Series doubleheader weekend introduced in 2022. The racetrack, owned by NASCAR but not hosting a race at the organization’s top three levels, was suddenly thrust into the discussion as a potential option for a Cup Series race in 2024. 

By Sept. 2023, an opening in the Cup schedule appeared. It was going to be a very quick turnaround, but NASCAR’s top drivers would be headed to Iowa for the first time ever. Current Iowa Speedway President Eric Peterson was on the NASCAR West Corporate sales team at the time, and began work on trying to get a title sponsor for the race. 

The person he got in touch with was Floss, who said he had no idea the call was coming. Floss said Iowa Corn made its decision in October or November, and the decision was officially announced Dec. 4, 2023, as The Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol.

In between negotiations for the title sponsorship and the race in June 2024, Peterson moved to Iowa and took the mantle as president of the speedway. The pressure was immense — not only because it was the first race at the speedway for the Cup Series. It was also going to be held in prime time on USA Network — another boost Iowa Corn considered when taking on the sponsorship, as it was NBC‘s first event of the season. 

Peterson said NASCAR had to “roll out the red carpet” in preparation to make the event a success.

“When NASCAR’s heading is on a show somewhere, they offer the resources, the support, [and] the team to make this successful. It’s not even an option not to be successful,” Peterson said.

A Winning Weekend

The dash to promote the 2024 race and prepare sponsor events on a short turnaround put the Iowa Corn and Iowa Speedway teams into overdrive. Tickets for the race sold out before Christmas, only heightening the pressure.

Floss said the quick sellout confirmed the decision to be a title sponsor was the right one, and it was backed up by the results of a survey Iowa Corn did with farmer members. Floss said he expected farmers’ most popular sport to be football or baseball — but racing was at the top of the list. Iowa Corn Promotion Board First Vice President Joe Roberts, a farmer from Wright County in the northern part of the state, is one of those farmers. 

A fan of racing since he was a little kid, Roberts said he could barely contain his excitement when the announcement was made. As a part of the Iowa Corn checkoff promotion staff, he worked on the market development, research, and education angles the organization was taking in the lead-up to the race. He said the race (and the location of the track) was a great jump-off point for the educational aspect of the campaign.

“A lot of people might not be familiar with what Iowa Corn does, and then we get to highlight everything that we do, not just here at the race, but what we do to grow markets nationwide,” Roberts said. “What we do in the research field, trying to drive new uses for corn. A little bit of it is public perception, the ability to reach consumers and educate them about what corn farmers do, and to be able to showcase that right there in their backyard where they’ve got cornfields right outside the racetrack.”

When race day arrived on June 16, more than 1,100 farmers gathered at Iowa Corn’s hospitality tent outside turn four of the racetrack. Floss said the farmer response in the lead-up to the race exceeded expectations, as did the race weekend. The Cup race, won by Ryan Blaney, drew 2.693 million average TV viewers, and Iowa Corn’s internal metrics confirmed the sponsorship had been a smart bet. 

“We really believed and felt that for the dollars invested, the return and exposure that we got — the leverage factor — was awesome,” Floss said. “That’s why we decided to do it again.”

Full Speed Ahead

Iowa Speedway and NASCAR agreed — Peterson said economic impact studies done after the race showed that the race provided about $100 million of economic benefit for Iowa. A new two-year title sponsorship deal was swiftly reached. With a triumphant first Cup weekend in the books, there was now a full year to try and make the 2025 edition of the Iowa Corn 350 an even bigger success. 

Peterson said a lot of credit for the partnership working has to go to Iowa Corn’s persistence and emphasis on activation — year-round promotion and events that advertise the race to a wider audience. He said there has been an incredible amount of effort from both the organization and the speedway to highlight the race and the impact of Iowa’s corn farmers.

With more time to get the word out, Peterson and Iowa Speedway have gone on a barnstorming tour of the state, hitting counties in all four corners and bringing along a racing simulator. Peterson has gone on a lot of these visits, and he said Iowa farmers have felt the love from the racing community. Iowa Speedway also made improvements to its own facilities with more entrance gates and the Busch Light Concert Series, which will take place in the infield during race weekend.

Iowa Corn has also been very active in planning and promoting the event, and Floss said there are a number of activations the commodity group is setting up, including partnerships with mechanics studying at local community colleges. Floss said it has been important for Iowa Corn to be active and open, as they want the race to be a celebration of the farmers who make E15 happen.

“It’s about corn farming, but it’s about agriculture,” Floss said. “It’s about showcasing what agriculture does for the broader economy, not only in Iowa, but nationally. What we do to help bring down fuel prices — we really hit on that with farmers present. Our goal is to always highlight, Why do farmers want to do this? Why does it matter to them? How does this impact their bottom line?”

A New Date, New Possibilities

With a year-round push ahead of the second Iowa Corn 350 also comes a new date: Aug. 3. 

When the 2025 schedule was under development, NASCAR reached out to Peterson to ask when the best time to run the race would be. Peterson said he was asked if putting the race on during harvest season would be a bad idea. The track avoided running into harvest, but Peterson said the new August date might lead to improved visuals around the speedway, thanks to the fields tended by Tyler Clement (whose family are the former owners of the track).

“We said, ‘Yeah.’ This is the Iowa Corn 350, right?” Peterson said. “That was a major part that played into this. Bumping it into August, which is just kind of on that cusp as you’re leading into the fall. I feel like that timing is really good from the overall visual and presentation of folks coming in from out of state and they see the corn there. That alone is pretty impactful. It looked good in June last year, it will look even better in August this year.”

Over 1,000 Iowa corn farmers will be present at the race weekend this summer. Roberts said one of his favorite parts of the weekend is welcoming those who come in from all over the country to see what the Heartland has to offer and telling them all about the role farmers play in American motorsports.

“I hope they come up and see the performance of E15 at the fastest short track on the planet and enjoy the beautiful cornfields that surround it and are the true source of that amazing, homegrown affordable biofuel,” Roberts said.