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How the magic of an IndyCar race is brought to life by its storytellers

April 18, 2026

An IndyCar race is more than just a report sheet, ranking the drivers in the order they finished.

There’s the abject elation-turned-utter dismay for rookies whose trajectory during a season doesn’t quite have an upward swing. The volatile Midwest weather changing the conditions of a race in a flash. The behind-the-scenes drama as teams clash, colliding on track and poaching drivers off it.

Without the storytellers, all of that action — the excitement that drives not just the race, but the entire season — would be lost.

Georgia Henneberry and Al Arena don’t let that happen.

“My job,” said Henneberry, a Fox Sports reporter who covers the NTT IndyCar Series, “is to connect the fans to the sport during the race.”

As a photographer, Arena said she showcases not just four-wheel racing, but also the personal and emotional side of the sport — the atmosphere, the feelings.

“We’re covering stories of people,” Henneberry added, “and really just trying to bridge the gap between the viewer at home and what’s going on between our whole paddock.”

During the 2025 Grand Prix of Long Beach, nearly 200,000 people converged on the city’s downtown. But another half a million people attended the race through their TVs and Fox’s coverage. And even more people caught up with the race through photos and videos on social media — even weeks after the last bit of grandstands were taken away from along Shoreline Drive and the final barrier was removed from Ocean Boulevard.

It will be much the same this year.

Al Arena is a motorsports photographer and founder of Ignite Media, who has shot several racing circuits, including the NTT IndyCar Series. (Photo courtesy of Al Arena)

For Arena and Henneberry, their own stories drove them to motorsports in different ways.

A St. Louis native, Henneberry was once on a track herself, winning karting championships.

Her mom barrel raced horses in local rodeos, but when Henneberry was 12, she saw a NASCAR race.

“That’s what I want to do,” a young Henneberry said. “I want to be a NASCAR driver.”

The next day, her mom took her to get fitted for karting.

But racing is an expensive sport, and when her family couldn’t afford to continue to pour money into it, Henneberry pivoted, finding new avenues to get trackside — and get paid to do so.

Henneberry, 28, parlayed her race career into a communications degree from Indiana University, from there working for IndyCar for three seasons as a host and reporter for its big-screen programs. She joined NBC Sports’ broadcast team in 2024, moving over to Fox Sports a year later.

For Arena, the photography came first. She’s witty and competitive — and while she never thought she’d be a racer, she enjoyed watching the sport. So while studying at the now-shuttered Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, Arena hoisted her camera and went out to shoot what was then Formula Drift in its infancy.

Those first photos, she said, were terrible.

But she kept shooting, kept working — and then the clients came.

Now, the Lake Forest resident runs Ignite Media, overseeing a team of photographers with clients in IndyCar, IMSA and Porsche Carrera Cup. And she still likes to shoot her “siren song,” Formula Drift.

Both Arena and Henneberry are constantly on the road — or in airports. Henneberry travels to all of the IndyCar races for Fox Sports; Arena goes to the vast majority of the races her company is contracted for, although she does skip a few so, as she put it, “My child doesn’t forget what I look like.”

Arena and Henneberry are both mothers who said it’s a privilege to juggle their jobs and parenthood.

Henneberry is a relatively new mom, and her son often tags along to races, she said. And that certainly changes the pace of race day.

Georgia Henneberry reports on the NTT INDYCAR Series for Fox Sports. (Photo courtesy of Fox Sports)

“From the moment you wake up, you’re mom, and then you try to get ready for work, and then you’re a reporter,” she said. “And then the second you get back to where you’re staying, you’re mom again, with the weight of the workload that is to be a professional.”

For Arena, there’s a lot of pride that comes with getting to bring her 7-year-old daughter along when the Grand Prix comes to Long Beach, letting her see exactly what it is she does when she’s gone so much.

“She can see me working and see that it’s a really fun job, and I love it so much,” Arena said. “But also, I’m working so we can have money so that we can do things.”

It’s a job that’s not mundane.

Arena has gotten better at anticipating where an out-of-control car will crash.

But she also has to navigate the unpredictability of a small industry, one where clients can come and go.

“One year, you can have this banner, amazing year. I’m unstoppable; I have so much work,” said Arena, who is originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan. “And then the next year you’re like, ‘I will do anything for $200.’

“It’s that ebb and flow that can be a little intimidating and scary,” she added, “and give you that giant pit in your stomach that you’re like, ‘Well, I could do something else. I don’t know how to do anything else, but I could do something.’”

But the unpredictability of a race weekend — now, that is something else entirely.

Arena is often at the same tracks, so she’s in constant search of a new spot, a different angle to shoot the cars. Doing this, in a way, manufactures change.

For Henneberry, meanwhile, a lot goes into preparing for a race. She studies the storylines of the season, the stats from the previous race. She joins production calls where she gets her assignments for the weekend, which drivers and cars she will cover.

But there’s a saying: “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.” That saying exists for a reason.

And Henneberry is OK with that. That unpredictability, she said, is one of her favorite parts.

“There’s a lot of adrenaline that goes up and down that pit lane,” Henneberry said, “but the reporters are right in that mix because as soon as something happens, it’s like, OK, all hands on deck; we’ve got to figure out what’s going on.”

Because of her own racing experience, Henneberry can put herself in the mindset of the people she covers in those high-intensity, high-adrenaline moments.

“There’s a lot of things that go on behind the helmet that are really intense,” she said. “So maybe I just can understand a little bit more, put myself in their shoes a little bit.”

“Obviously, I’ve never raced the Indy 500,” she added. “I’ve never done that, but whether you’re racing a go-kart or racing in IndyCar, at that moment, you feel like it’s the biggest thing you’re doing.”

Still, Henneberry said, she’s constantly learning in her role.

Learning and piecing the stories together.

How the magic of an IndyCar race is brought to life by its storytellers Orange County Register

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How the magic of an IndyCar race is brought to life by its storytellers

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