IndyCar hires Scot Elkins as managing director of officiating

The process of spinning off IndyCar officiating so that it can be independently overseen instead of directly run by Penske Entertainment — whose owner also directly runs three race cars in the series — has been somewhat plodding, but it has at least been completed ahead of the Indy 500. The appointment of Raj Nair, Ray Evernham and Ronan Morgan as the Independent Officiating Board (IOB) happened a while ago, allowing them to do all the necessary homework, but many races into the 2026 season, they still hadn’t done the main thing, which was to hire a managing director of officiating (MDO) for the series.

They took their time and looked at a bunch of candidates — which is clearly a good thing — and now they have selected Scot Elkins, who was the technical director of operations for the Champ Car World Series from 2005–2008, and he has experience in officiating and regulations with basically every kind of top-level racing on Earth. Seems like an ideal choice.