March 27th 2026

'Top Gun' cam bolsters FOX's IndyCar broadcast toolkit

The IndyCar on FOX team is having fun with the creative license they’ve been given to try new cameras, graphics, and vantage points from inside the field of 25 cars.

FOX Sports and technical support partner BSI continue to work together on innovations for IndyCar, which started last year with the Driver’s Eye camera and evolved with the recent application of live data – the ‘Iron Man’ cam – on top of the inside-the-helmet feed.

The latest addition to the offerings is the ‘Top Gun’ cam, which looks back the drivers from the central spar on the titanium halo that anchors IndyCar’s wraparound aeroscreen cockpit safety device (below). With its wide field of view, fans get to see more than the regular perspective where the driver’s helmet fills the frame.

Thanks to the larger lens, which is easily spotted from the Driver's Eye, the Top Gun view includes looks outside the left and right of the aeroscreen to amplify the visuals during passes and overtakes. Although in-helmet and rear-facing cockpit cameras aren’t new, FOX’s willingness to bring the technology to the series and continue searching for new ways to tell a more compelling story has been an important upgrade since it took over as IndyCar’s exclusive broadcaster in 2025.

“We have, quite possibly, no exaggeration... the biggest IndyCar fan in the country is our president,” IndyCar on FOX Director Mitch Riggin told RACER. “Eric Shanks has really empowered us to get creative; that's where it all starts.

"And then FOX always wants to make things look like an event. We want to make things look big. So we're always empowered to get in there, and our bosses tell us, ‘Let's make things look a little different, give us your vision.’

“So I have the great privilege of working for bosses who grant me that freedom. [Before,] you saw a guy in a car, and you couldn't really tell he was driving. You just saw a guy’s helmet. And what I wanted was to be able to see all of this (with the Top Gun cam), and we did a lot of testing so you could see the steering wheel and everything else. It was a lot of testing, and it was months and months of trying to see if the drivers like it. Can they see around it? Is it too big? The Dallara and BSI folks and everyone was instrumental in walking me through this process.”

The result, which featured throughout the Arlington Grand Prix race, brought another dimension to the broadcast as more cars were added to the Top Gun team. FOX’s robust deployment of in-car cameras is another benefit to the relationship with IndyCar, where Fox Corporation took a 33 percent ownership stake in the series’ parent company.

At any given race, 15 cars will carry one or more in-car feeds, and the number could stretch to 16 by the Indianapolis 500, which would give fans onboard feeds for almost half of the 33 starters. For this weekend’s Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix at Barber Motorsports Park, six drivers will carry Driver’s Eye cameras in their helmets, including championship leader Kyle Kirkwood and Phoenix race winner Josef Newgarden, along with Christian Lundgaard, Felix Rosenqvist, Santino Ferrucci and Christian Rasmussen.

Another new capability FOX has incorporated into the cars is a dual-pass transmission, which allows more simultaneous feeds to stream from the cars for the director to use at the same time. The spirit of identifying and removing problems – or trying brand-new concepts – is fully embraced by Riggins and his broadcast team.

“We’re working on a little something secret, hopefully for the Washington D.C. race, with another camera angle that's never really been done,” he said. “We're inventing it, this one certain angle. We’ve always got something we're trying. We're also going to debut a camera for the at the 500 in a different mounting position that I'm working on. And we're also working on the new (2028) car as well, and I've got a couple new angles on that thing.

“We can put four feeds on a car, and then I can have all four of those feeds going. But what I'm doing and looking towards is having six possibilities for cameras on the cars. And only four of them would be full, but it’s six places to choose from so you could use different ones, and that way we'll have it look like there are more cameras.”

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