Indianapolis, IN
PPG Extends Sponsorship With Indianapolis Motor Speedway & Team Penske
The new logo for the Brickyard 400 Presented by PPG
One of the longest-running “Business-to-business” relationships in professional sports will continue well into the future as PPG has extended its business relationship with the Penske Corporation.
This relationship dates to the early 1980s and its involvement is far reaching into the automotive industry with Penske’s vast number of car dealerships, as well as sponsorship of Team Penske in auto racing and its growing partnership with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The announcement was made Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
PPG is a global leader in paints, coatings and specialty materials. It announced a multiyear agreement to extend its presenting sponsorship of the Brickyard 400, a crown jewel of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
PPG also will continue as the Official Paint and Finishing Supplier of IMS as part of the long-term agreement.
The presenting sponsorship, which began in 2024 with the Brickyard’s 30th anniversary and return to the oval, adds to PPG’s historic legacy with the Brickyard 400. The first seven winners of the Brickyard 400 had their names inscribed on the coveted PPG Trophy.
As part of the extended sponsorship announcement, the logo for the 2025 Brickyard 400 presented by PPG also was unveiled. The logo incorporates the colors synonymous with PPG and its motorsports involvement, which signify the company’s focus to protect and beautify the world.
“For more than four decades, PPG has been one of the most trusted, innovative and dedicated partners in motorsports,” said Roger Penske. “We look forward to building on our long-term relationship with PPG and the opportunities that lie ahead as we continue to feature PPG and their commitment to enhancing our communities across IndyCar and NASCAR and at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”
For more than 40 years, PPG also has maintained a partnership across Team Penske’s NASCAR and IndyCar programs.
As part of Sunday’s news, it was announced PPG also returns as a Team Penske partner in the NASCAR Cup Series, serving as an associate sponsor of the No. 2 Ford Mustang driven by 2022 Daytona 500 champion Austin Cindric, the No. 12 Ford Mustang driven by reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney and the No. 22 Ford Mustang driven by two-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano.
“We are excited to build upon our extensive history with Team Penske, IndyCar and IMS,” said PPG Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tim Knavish. “To be able to expand and strengthen these relationships speaks to the commitment and success we’ve had together. I look forward to seeing the PPG name on Team Penske cars and at the Brickyard 400 for years to come.”
Team Penske’s most recent NASCAR victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway came with Cindric at the inaugural race on the road course during Brickyard Weekend 2021 in the No. 22 PPG Ford Mustang.
PPG works to develop and deliver the paints, coatings and specialty materials that our customers have trusted for more than 140 years.
Through dedication and creativity, PPG solves customers’ biggest challenges, collaborating closely to find the right path forward. With headquarters in Pittsburgh, PPG operates and innovates in more than 70 countries and reported net sales of $18.2 billion in 2023. PPG serves customers in construction, consumer products, industrial and transportation markets and aftermarkets.
On the team side, PPG will continue to play a major role in IndyCar and NASCAR.
The 40-plus year partnership between Team Penske and PPG – one of the longest-running business relationships in motorsports history – will continue in 2024 and beyond.
The distinctive blue-and-white PPG paint scheme will continue to be featured in NTT IndyCar Series competition as two-time series champion and back-to-back Indianapolis 500 winner, Josef Newgarden, will race the No. 2 PPG Chevrolet in 2024 and into the future.
Under the partnership extension, PPG will continue to serve as an associate partner on the No. 12 Chevrolet driven by two-time IndyCar champion Will Power, and the No. 3 Chevrolet driven by six-time IndyCar Series race winner Scott McLaughlin.
“Our relationship with PPG was really one of the first business-to-business partnerships of its kind in motorsports,” said Team Penske President Tim Cindric. “It began over 40 years ago, and we are really proud of everything we have accomplished together on and off the race track. Their commitment to motorsports has been far-reaching. We are looking forward to continuing to wear their colors in the winner’s circle for years to come.”
The Team Penske and PPG partnership began with the 1984 IndyCar Series season. Over the last 40-plus years, Team Penske and PPG have amassed unparalleled successes together.
Notable accomplishments include, 17 Indianapolis 500 victories, 11 IndyCar titles, four NASCAR Cup Series championships, three Daytona 500 wins, seven NASCAR Xfinity Series titles, four Australian SuperCars Championship triumphs and a Bathurst 1000 victory.
“I am honored and excited to continue representing PPG in the NTT IndyCar Series,” said Newgarden. “They are a legacy partner not only of Team Penske, but of the series as well. A company with terrific products deserves a beautiful paint scheme and the No. 2 PPG Chevrolet certainly has that. Fans love it as much as we do. I have a lot of wins with PPG, and I am looking forward to plenty more in the future.”
Team Penske’s most recent NASCAR victory at IMS came with Cindric in 2021 on the famed facility’s road course behind the wheel of the No. 22 PPG Ford Mustang. Team Penske and PPG have visited victory lane together 13 times across INDYCAR and NASCAR competition as a primary partner.
(A version of this story first appeared in 2020.)
When the Marott Hotel opened at Meridian Street and North Fall Creek Boulevard in 1926, it was a culmination of 30 years planning for George J. Marott.
Born in Daventry, Northamptonshire, England, Marott emigrated to the United States in 1875 at the age of 16 with his parents. He opened a shoe store in 1884 in Indianapolis, using money he earned from his $10 a week salary as a shoe clerk in a store his father operated, according to an obituary in the Indianapolis Star on February 16, 1946.
Eventually one shoe store became several. A consummate businessman, Marott also purchased electric and heating utilities in Kokomo and interurban lines between Kokomo and Marion and Kokomo and Frankfort, though he eventually sold those.
Marott continued to diversify, building the hotel that bears his name. He worked 12 to 15 hours a day all his life, juggling management of the hotel and his shoe business, his obituary said.
The hotel was his pride and joy; it wasn’t just a hotel, it was also a place where Indianapolis’ high society resided just as New York society did at the Waldorf-Astoria and the Plaza Hotel. Booth Tarkington, Meredith Nicholson and widows of Indianapolis’ long-dead tycoons all took up residence.
“I saw in this property,” Marott said, “the opportunity some to erect some kind of a monumental edifice to the city which I have loved so well and as the time draws near for the realization of a dream, I am convinced anew that my dreams to hold this property for the purpose to which it now is dedicated have been fulfilled.”
Limousines lined the property’s semi-circular drive as visitors in tails and minks arrived to be entertained in the Marott’s Marble Ballroom, Reef Room and Crystal Dining Room.
The hotel guest list over the years was as impressive as the structure itself: Clark Gable, Paul Newman, Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Bob Hope, Babe Ruth, Herbert Hoover, Helen Hayes and Lauren Bacall.
In 1932, Winston Churchill, then a member of British Parliament, arrived in Indianapolis by train with his daughter, Diana. They were given a hearty welcome by Indianapolis dignitaries, including Mayor Reginald Sullivan, then spirited away to the Marott Hotel where they stayed.
That evening Churchill spoke before a crowd of 1,200 at the Murat Theater on the “destiny of English-speaking peoples.” Churchill was still nursing wounds suffered in a car accident on New York’s Fifth Avenue just months before and did little Indianapolis sightseeing or socializing, but he was entertained by his fellow countryman, George Marott.
Churchill was so impressed with the hotel that he carried back to England a complete plan of the hotel. Marott and Churchill developed a friendship that lasted until Marott’s death in 1946.
A 1940 Indianapolis Star article noted Marott’s career attracted the attention of numerous authors who wanted to write a book about his life, which he found distasteful. Churchill was the most eminent author he refused. When Churchill returned to England, he sent Marott one of his books — an autobiography as proof of his writing ability. Marott cherished the autographed book, even though the text misspelled his name as “Marrot.”
Marott was also known for his generosity. Over the course of his life, he gave away more than $500,000, according to his obituary. Shortly before his death, he donated his shoe store empire to Butler University and his veteran employees, an Indianapolis Star story on January 27 of that year reported. About 20 years later, the employees bought out Butler.
At the age of 87, Marott died in his apartment in the hotel that bore his name. After flourishing for several decades, the Marott Shoe Company closed its downtown store at 18 East Washington Street in June 1978. A few years later, its remaining suburban stores closed as well.
By the 1970s, the Marott had gone through several owners and become low-income apartments. The Marott got a shot in the arm with extensive renovations, and today the Marott apartments are owned by Van Rooy Companies. The hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
INDIANAPOLIS — One person is in critical condition following a shooting on Indy’s near east side.
According to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, around 8:10 p.m., officers were called to the 2000 block of East Washington Street on reports of a person shot.
Upon arrival, police located a 50-year-old man with injuries consistent with a gunshot wound.
He is currently reported to be in extremely critical condition.
No additional information has been made available at the time of this article’s publication.
This is a developing story; check back for updates.
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on June 17 gave AES the nod to raise electricity rates enough to earn an additional $71 million each year, a decision that drew reproof from Indiana lawmakers who called it another blow to cost-burdened consumers.
The approved rate represents less than half of the $192 million increase that AES initially requested. It’s also less than the $91 million increase proposed in an October settlement agreement between AES, the city of Indianapolis and major electricity consumers like Kroger and Walmart.
But the new rate is still significantly more than what the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, the state agency representing ratepayers in the case, recommended in September. The OUCC’s proposal would have capped AES’s annual operating revenue at $21 million less than the current level.
The rate increase authorizes AES to earn a total of nearly $2 billion each year, or an estimated $384 million in profit.
The higher base rate comes as a double whammy for Indianapolis-area households, who are already paying more for electricity this summer after AES temporarily raised rates to account for higher-than-anticipated fuel costs during last winter’s storms. The increase also arrives against the backdrop of inflation, which rose to a three-year high last month, and surging gas prices due to the war in Iran.
Gov. Mike Braun wrote in a Wednesday post to X that he was “deeply disappointed” by the IURC’s approval of the rate increase.
“Hoosiers have spent years tightening their belts and making tough financial decisions,” Braun wrote. “It’s time for utility companies to do the same.”
The IURC’s decision also drew fire from the other side of the aisle. In a June 17 news release, five Democrats representing Indianapolis in the state Senate – J.D. Ford, Andrea Hunley, La Keisha Jackson, Fady Qaddoura, and Greg Taylor – chastised Indiana’s Republican supermajority for failing to rein in rising utility costs.
“Hoosiers pay more. Monopoly utilities collect more. And the leaders in the super-majority who promise affordability over and over again show those are just empty words,” the news release said. “Instead, they continue to defend a system that takes more and more out of our paychecks.”
The consumer advocacy group Citizens Action Coalition also slammed the rate increase. Ben Inskeep, CAC’s program director, said the decision left him “less optimistic that this commission is willing to do things differently and to actually hold utilities accountable.”
He said the IURC should have penalized AES for issues that plagued customers after the utility updated its billing system in 2023, including duplicated withdrawals for the same monthly bill.
The rate increase will take effect in two phases, with rates going up in July 2026 and January 2027. AES officials anticipate the hikes “will be less than $5 per month per phase” for a household that uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per month, according to a Wednesday news release from the utility.
“The IURC’s decision reflects a thorough, transparent process and balances the need for continued investment in the electric system with a focus on customer affordability,” the news release stated.
Under a state law that Braun signed in February, AES cannot ask for another increase to its base rate until January 2030 — though electricity bills could still go up for other reasons, like the fuel adjustment charge hitting consumers this month.
Three members of the five-member IURC signed off on the rate increase: Andy Zay, David Veleta, and David Ziegner. Commissioner Bob Deig dissented. Commissioner Anthony Swinger recused himself from the decision because he worked on the AES rate case for the OUCC before he was appointed to the IURC by Braun in January.
“None of this was taken lightly,” Zay, the IURC’s chair, said at the Wednesday hearing, adding that the commission and its staff had carefully weighed concerns about affordability. The commissioners did not go into further detail at the hearing.
But the commission’s order shows some of the debates that played out during the rate case. One point of contention was AES’s authorized return on equity — that is, how much the utility can earn each year in profits. Other disputes hinged on how AES forecasts its operating expenses.
The OUCC accused AES of including more than 100 “phantom hires,” vacant positions it did not necessarily intend to fill in its calculations. Last year, AES said that the rising costs of vegetation management, or trimming trees around power lines, also drove the need to raise rates. The OUCC recommended keeping vegetation management costs flat.
One factor that’s not driving higher prices? Data centers.
AES does not currently provide service to any data centers and did not include them in its calculations, AES president Brandi Davis-Handy said in testimony before the IURC.
Tilly Robinson is a Pulliam fellow for the Indianapolis Star. She can be reached at tilly.robinson@indystar.com.
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