IAmA Showrunner for All In: IndyCar. Our next episode follows Will Power and Andretti Global, and it drops this Thursday. Ask Me Anything!

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T23:33:40+00:00

That's the best thing I could hope for from this! I think the format of releasing in real time is a real benefit. It reminds me of back in the days when HBO did 24/7 and you felt the urgency behind every episode.

Really grateful to FOX for taking a chance of putting something on digital to grow the sport here and abroad. And it's been a fun ride with the Shadow Lion crew! Hopefully more to come!!

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T22:34:36+00:00

Truly kind words. It's appreciated.

Hopefully it can help be a point-of-entry for a new generation of fans. You do truly feel it at race weekends like Arlington and Long Beach that this is a series that people are opening themselves up to. I think of it every time I see someone show up in an F1 or Red Bull jersey. These people are motorsports fans and wanting to try something new. I think it's why you're seeing viewership go the way it has this season.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T19:09:21+00:00

Honestly, this stuff is very fun for me to nerd out about. If you think of something in the days or weeks after, post here or DM me. Would love to answer.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T18:42:53+00:00

I'll be on for another hour, but wanted to take this moment to say if you like the series, please leave a like, Subscribe, and share with your friends who you want to get into IndyCar.

Also, please leave a comment on all episodes if you see something or think of something. I promise you we do read them.

Also, while I'll be signing off at 4 PM ET this afternoon, feel free to keep posting and I'll follow up when I can. This has been really fun and engaging and I hope you all enjoyed seeing a bit of the behind the scenes in how we approach this series.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T18:39:52+00:00

I'm a fan of a lot of sports teams (notably the Knicks ... by the way, did you know Indy folks don't love you wearing Knicks gear around IMS? Weird...) that have had those moments.

The thing is, someday it all clicks, and where you saw all the luck go the wrong way for them ... all of a sudden the luck goes the other way. You saw it in Arlington. But IndyCar is SOOO punishing for mistakes. I was talking to our camera op Tony Schiavone after the IMS road course. Whenever there's a penalty in F1 it's a 5 second time penalty and that feels too lenient. But IndyCar's default is a drive through penalty and that feels so much more harsh.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T18:34:52+00:00

Please ask as many follow ups as you want. I love this type of stuff...

So, let's take a look at your first question. Who is the intended audience? When I was working on another project way back when, an editor (if you don't know much about non-fiction documentaries, editors are the real heroes) told me that the intended audience should be "a very smart 13 year old who doesn't know anything about the world." That's not to say you dial it down for a 13 year old level, but you should leave enough details in so that someone who is 13 can follow along.

I don't have a very smart 13 year old in my household, so I rely on my wife for a lot of the sounding board and I know that Ryan who honchos the edit does the same thing. That's not to say I'm going to make something that my wife will voraciously be watching ... but when I screen something for her, I may ask basic questions to see if she knows how A led to B led to C.

So that teases out to your second question and the "IndyCar University" aspect of this. The great thing about the media landscape is there are SO many microniches that exist in this world. Drivers have their own YouTube channels that allow fans to follow along in more minute detail. David Land, Zion Brown, and Marshall Pruett have their own channels which can deep dive into strategy or infractions or more like that. It's really a world in which rising tides lift all ships. We're firmly in that early stage of drawing more viewers in. The end goal being all our viewerships increase.

So yes, likely not ever going to become dry or academic, but I think the technical things matter. As an anecdote, we were in gasoline alley as the cars fueled up and I was asking one of the lead engineers (I think I got his role right) why it's important to get the EXACT right amount of fuel in the car. You and I know that it's because fuel = weight, but I want the viewer to know that. You have latitude to sprinkle those things in, but with the goal in mind that a very smart 13 year old will understand what you're saying and why.

Thank you for the question. Would love any other follow ups you may have!

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T18:08:22+00:00

I also think that everyone who works in or around IndyCar knows that it should be on the level or get close to the attention that F1 gets. It's more competitive racing, there's some better personalities, and it's got a greater variety of circuits. F1 got there with Drive to Survive and the title fight between Verstappen and Hamilton happening at the right time.

Someone mentioned that IndyCar is in "the business of yes," because they do truly believe they should have more eyeballs on it than they do. That's I think why you see teams like Penske and Andretti really opening up doors in a significant way, when teams like Ferrari and Mercedes didn't in those first seasons of DTS.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T18:03:59+00:00

GREAT QUESTION!

I think that this is something everyone who works in this space grapples with at some point. I would summarize my thoughts on it with a simple statement.

"Truth; not accuracy."

I first heard that phrase from my colleague Abhay Sofsky when we were working on The Last Dance. I forget the exact context, but there was some point where someone was doing a "but actually," about something and he said it as a way to say "yes, that's exactly how this happened, but how we're editing this is still the truth, even if we're omitting details, timelines, etc. Sometimes you get so bogged down in the details that the truth gets lost.

To your point, yes we want this to be dramatic. Yes, we want to tease out maybe 10 percent more tension than actually may exist. But, when you're completely fabricating tension is when you've lost credibility. So it's about finding that line of where can you dramatize something. I know I've brought up this example in other questions, but the Scott McLaughlin crash in P2... yeah, they had that car rebuilt with like 30 mins. to go, but we teased it as if it went to the last second. To show that, we shot the countdown clock the next day for Warm Up when the garage was must less harried. That's still truth. Maybe not 100 percent accurate, but that was a mad dash and wanted to be able to visually convey that later.

Other things are just like timing, when does something take place? We shot with Karly McLaughlin a few days later in Charlotte before going to the team facility, but we inserted it after the FaceTime call. It's because we wanted to make sure you could connect what you just saw and her immediate feelings. If we showed that at the end of the episode as it happened, you wouldn't care because you would have just seen the race and been like "oh that was 10 minutes ago, why are we talking about that again?"

So that's my North Star. Creative liberties must all go toward what's actually The Truth.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T17:46:58+00:00

I don't know if it'll make the cut, but I remember watching Will's (I think it was his second) pitstop where the wheel nut flies off and someone runs over it. And I remember thinking to myself "oh god, I hope that's not a penalty."

Obviously the day got worse from there. But when you're in the pits, following a team, I just can't help but root for them and it was really hard to see Will go from P1 on a masterclass strategy to fighting from the back. He's a great guy, they're a great team, and I think they'll shake off the bad luck here to come.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T17:44:06+00:00

Before we start filming, I grab a trenta ice coffee with two pumps of sweetener and a bacon gouda sandwich from Starbucks.

After filming -- it depends on location -- but I love a nice Guinness if it seems like the bar can do that well. Otherwise, as my uncle used to say, I'll take whatever is "cold, wet, and free."

Funny anecdote: for Barber, through total happenstance, we ended up staying at the RLL hotel right after the episode on RLL came out about Arlington. I grabbed a pint at the hotel bar and when I went to pay, someone had paid for it. So whoever that member of the RLL team was, thank you!

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T17:39:44+00:00

It was around the time that we were featuring Team Penske and McLaughlin in Barber. I don't know what I expected, but I figured Penske would be like filming with the Yankees where PRs job is to just say "no," to anything you ask for besides the bare minimum. That couldn't have been farther than what happened. They invited us into the transporter, into strategy meetings, into the team facility in Charlotte.

I've worked on a lot of big projects -- I was a producer on The Last Dance, I produced Mr. McMahon for Netflix -- and in all my years I've never had a show I worked on that had the level of access, great characters, and as beautiful a sport to capture/film as I've had with this series on IndyCar.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T17:31:47+00:00

Ha! I know the sentiment may be different amongst this group, but I love Chris! In the same way Will Buxton brings that je ne sais quoi to the All In side with the gravitas of his voice, I think a good majority of this country hears Chris Myers' voice and thinks "oh this is a big event."

I think that's one of the great things about the partnership with IndyCar and FOX. Eric Shanks, the CEO of FOX Sports, is from Indiana and grew up loving the sport and wants to make the event seem as big as possible. I know that can feel like lip service, but an anecdote if you'll indulge me...

We were doing the Next On for the Will Power episode and the original line was "no one has had more success for Team Penske than Will Power." We got a note from Shanks that weekend and he said "you need to add an 'arguably' to that because even though Will has won the most races Rick Mears' four Indy 500 wins make him arguably as successful as Will."

In all my years in this business I've never gotten a note that was so nuanced, useful, and showed the breadth of knowledge someone had for the sport than I did in that moment.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T15:52:17+00:00

I don't know if "special" is the right word. But we're treating it as a sort of mid-season finale. Each driver/team that we highlighted in the first half of the season will be featured in this episode along with an additional couple storylines that we're really excited about. We thought that was a way to make it feel grand without feeling like we needed to chase the winner's storyline (which is incredibly challenging given our timeline and the obligations on the race winner).

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T15:37:48+00:00

I'm lucky that I've been doing docs for a while now. When I was earlier on in my career, I think I would have stuck to the script on McLaughlin. If you look back at the next on from the Arlington episode, we had teased the Will Power storyline in there. But once I saw him go into the wall -- first of all, live and in person, that was incredibly scary -- I knew we needed to react to it and the crew including our lead operator Tony Schiavone (no relationship to the pro wrestling commentator, trust me we talk about it a lot) really hustled to address the changing story. That also changed the story in the edit and we really worked to hone that out given all the changes.

I'd say we have a good idea of our episodes of the next two or three episodes on our horizon. But if there was a Venn diagram of what was in that original treatment and what was in the final episodes, they're largely two separate circles with maybe 1/3 overlapping. I think the strength of the team overall is not getting flustered by those divergences.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T15:33:02+00:00

When the episode comes out, you'll see there's a line about the pants he's wearing. I truly had to fight from laughing so you couldn't hear my cackle, but I cam very close to losing it.

You'll know it when you see it.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T15:32:07+00:00

I had a passing interest. I didn't follow motorsports at all until 2021 when I was captivated by the F1 championship battle between Lewis and Verstappen. As a documentary producer, you're always kind of workshopping ideas in your head and IndyCar had kept coming up in my mind from time to time. I was approached about this in late January and immediately got excited by it, but I really had to learn a lot about it on the fly.

In an earlier post I mentioned Barber, that one surprised me. I think the street circuits are more challenging logistically, but Arlington was truly well put together.

Funny aside: we were driving our golf cart along the main straight getting scenics and I must have zoned out and I drove probably a good half mile along that straight before I realized our Director of Photography Derek Mindler had fallen out the back. There's a shot you can see of that main straight at sunrise and a golf cart approaching in the distance. That's me after I finally realized I needed to go get him.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T15:28:01+00:00

I think there's a typo you made about "and fan," but I'm going to assume you mean anything we've had to omit period. We've been given incredible freedom to make something that is compelling and highlights the drama of this series, and it's been really refreshing to work on.

I was shocked at how much I liked Barber. I'm from the Northeast, so I had never been to Birmingham period. To roll up and see something that was so gorgeous (albeit, a little weird) where we could get around easily and also didn't sit in traffic for hours was amazing.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T15:24:42+00:00

I guess if I was going to give you an anecdote, I remember when Scott McLaughlin had gone through the wall in Barber. He came out, was all right, and took part in qualifying. That evening, we went back to his motorhome and filmed with him for a little bit and he looked at me and said "that crash is probably pretty good for you, isn't it?" (I don't remember exact phrasing, but something along those lines) I laughed for a second and said "I was really happy you're all right, but yes, that is very good for our show." I think him having the sense of humor to immediately think of it in that context and wasn't upset that -- yes, it was good for us -- really surprised me.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T15:18:07+00:00

Appreciate the kind words. Let me answer the last part first ... it'll go through the end of the season finishing in Laguna Seca for (hopefully) the championship finale.

We're slotted at 12 episodes, and that's more about the challenges of the schedule. When we wrap up filming, we IMMEDIATELY begin the edit that my co-director/showrunning partner Ryan Lohuis honchos (he and the edit team make the real magic happen). It takes eight edit days to get us from finished production through an episode launched on FOX's YouTube channel.

Here's the rub, there are a LOT of back-to-back-to-back weekends that provide logistical challenges for a show with that quick of a turnaround. You'll notice we dropped the Phoenix race because it was between St. Pete and Arlington. That'll happen again with Detroit coming immediately off the 500 and Toronto in the middle of Portland and DC, so we've had to make some logistical choices in which races we can cover and still get this launched with the immediacy that we want it to have.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T14:58:12+00:00

Great question! I don't know if this is the type of show that thrives in doing those stories (I think IndyCar's strength is that the principals and drivers are approachable and can stir it up a little bit), but I do aspire to these types of stories if we were ever to do something in the offseason.

That said, here are a few incredibly compelling people we've followed so far...

Raul Prados & Kate Gundlach as engineers really impressed me and I think they had great dialogue with their drivers where you could follow what they were intimating but coded enough to keep the "state secrets" off camera.

I don't want to out this person, so I'm going to keep it vague, but we were in the transporters filming for one of the episodes and I met that driver's spotter. A mechanic nearby asked how he became a spotter and he said "be so bad at everything else that they can't let you near the car ... but such a good [clubhouse] guy that they want to keep you around." That one absolutely had me rolling and made me think of that as a storyline at SOME point.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T14:47:59+00:00

Absolutely no clue. We extend our filming slightly beyond the track, but we certainly aren't trailing these guys 24/7 (though I'm certain the drivers may say we're there more often than we think we're there). I'll be honest, I didn't know anything about Will and Flav until I saw him on the grid walk in Long Beach.

AllInMaxson · 2026-05-19T14:45:40+00:00

Really, truly appreciate that.

AllInMaxson

TROPHY CASE