For the first time in history, race cars will run wheel-to-wheel on the National Mall. The Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C., set for 22-23 August 2026, brings the NTT IndyCar Series to a 1.7-mile street circuit threading the monumental heart of the American capital - staged to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The circuit design reads like a civics lesson at 180 mph: a seven-turn layout with a sweeping four-tenths-of-a-mile front stretch along Pennsylvania Avenue, framed by the Washington Monument at one end and the US Capitol at the other, with the field racing past the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives. Pit lane sits on Pennsylvania Avenue itself between Turns 1 and 2. The access model is the boldest part: the landmark weekend is free and open to the public - unprecedented for a modern IndyCar street race - trading gate revenue for the spectacle of North America's premier open-wheel series running among the symbols of American democracy, with grandstand and premium options layered onto the free footprint. The event joins a lineage of city-transforming street races - Long Beach, St. Petersburg, Detroit - but no predecessor has commanded a stage like this one: federal, district and series authorities spent years aligning security, preservation and logistics to close the Mall's streets for a race weekend. Practical notes: the circuit area is served by multiple Metro lines - Archives, Smithsonian and L'Enfant Plaza stations all sit within the footprint - and August in Washington means full summer heat and afternoon storm risk; shade along the museum frontages will be the most contested real estate in motorsport. The undertaking is enormous even by street-race standards: temporary grandstands, barriers and bridges must be erected and struck around the daily life of the federal core, with the National Park Service, the District and Congress all holding pieces of the approval chain. Organisers have framed the race as the centrepiece of the America 250 celebrations in the capital - a moving monument to run past the standing ones - and the paddock and fan-village footprint along the Mall is designed to funnel visitors into the Smithsonian museums flanking the circuit during the weekend.

Type: Outdoors

Address: 30 7th Street NW, Washington, DC, United States

Website: https://www.indycar.com

Opening Date: 22/08/2026

Outdoor Area

Accessible