Sting Ray Robb was still racing go-karts as a kid in Payette, Idaho, when he taped a hot pink cross to the front of his hood. He did not know yet that he would carry that same habit into the NTT INDYCAR SERIES, or that his car would one day sit on the streets of the nation’s capital with a Bible verse inscribed on it before the first-ever IndyCar race in Washington, D.C.
Robb, whose given name really was inspired by the Corvette Sting Ray, has never hidden that faith sits at the center of how he handles a sport built on constant highs and lows. This weekend, with the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. putting IndyCar on the National Mall for the first time in series history, he opened up about what carries him through both.
A Verse on the Car
Robb’s IndyCar carries the inscription John 3:30, the verse in which John the Baptist says of Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.” Robb wears the same reference on his suit and his helmet. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Signal published ahead of the D.C. race, Robb gave an inside look at what race week feels like from behind that verse rather than in spite of it.
That belief shapes how Robb has talked about his career in the past. IndyCar is a series where a driver can qualify well, race clean, and still finish outside the points over a mechanical failure or a caution at the wrong moment. Robb has pointed to his faith as the foundation that keeps his sense of self separate from whatever the results say on a given Sunday, a distinction he has needed more than once across his four years in the series.
A Rookie Season Full of Both Ends
Robb made his NTT INDYCAR SERIES debut in 2023 with Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing, and the season captured exactly the swings he has talked about. He finished 23rd in the standings with 147 points across 17 starts, an average finish outside the top 20. Buried in those numbers, though, was a run at the Indianapolis 500 that few rookies ever produce: Robb led 23 laps and crossed the line fifth, a result that stood out against an otherwise difficult year.
That was the pattern. Flashes of real speed inside a season that, on paper, looked rough. Robb had already built a track record of getting results out of equipment before that. He won the 2020 USF Pro 2000 championship and finished second in the 2022 INDY NXT standings, the traditional final step before IndyCar, arriving in the series with a resume that suggested he belonged.
Building Something at A.J. Foyt Racing
Robb moved to A.J. Foyt Racing for the 2024 season and kept working. He posted a career-best 12th-place finish in the season finale at Monterey, and by year’s end he had recorded 82 overtakes, the third most of any driver in the 2024 INDYCAR season. Overtakes do not always show up in a final finishing position, but they say something about a driver willing to fight for track position race after race rather than settle for where he started.
Now in his fourth full season in the series, Robb has become the kind of driver teams know will make the most of whatever car is underneath him, even when the results do not always follow.
Racing on the National Mall
The Freedom 250 Grand Prix puts that resilience to a new kind of test. The 147-lap race covers a temporary 1.7-mile, seven-turn street circuit built around the National Mall, with the Washington Monument visible from the racing line, the first auto race ever held on the streets of the nation’s capital. Nearly half the field will run special patriotic liveries for the occasion, and drivers who have spent the weekend adjusting to the bumpy, unfamiliar circuit have called the atmosphere unlike anything else on the calendar. Pole-sitter Alex Palou, chasing a fourth consecutive championship, described the surface bluntly after practice: “It’s very bumpy. Huge bumps heading into Turn 2 and Turn 6.” He also called the experience “a blast, super fun,” a mix of respect and enthusiasm that has echoed through the paddock all week as drivers who have raced on street courses around the world encounter something built specifically around the monuments of Washington.
For Robb, racing in front of a crowd seeing IndyCar for the first time is its own kind of opportunity. A street course in a city full of first-time fans rewards the same qualities that have defined his career so far: aggression, patience through mistakes, and the willingness to keep racing hard even when a result does not go his way. Those are qualities Robb has said his faith helps him hold onto regardless of where he finishes on a given Sunday.
The circuit itself adds an extra layer of difficulty. Built specifically for this weekend around fixed government landmarks, the temporary track cannot be widened or smoothed the way a purpose-built road course can, leaving drivers to adapt to bumps and elevation changes that showed up only once cars hit real racing speed in practice. For a driver like Robb, who has spent his career squeezing results out of cars that were not always the fastest in the field, an unpredictable new circuit is less of an obstacle than an equalizer. Nobody in the field has raced this exact combination of corners before, and a rookie mistake from a championship contender counts the same as one from a driver outside the points.
Away From the Track
Off track, Robb’s life still looks a lot like the one he had before IndyCar. He spends his time away from race weekends in Idaho’s mountains, skiing, hunting, and chasing whatever outdoor activity the season allows, a grounded routine that stands apart from the traveling circus most of the paddock lives inside for ten months a year. A 2024 feature published by INDYCAR itself, titled “Keeping Faith Takes Sting Out of Racing’s Valleys for Robb,” described the same theme that has followed him all the way back to his rookie year: a driver who treats setbacks as part of the process rather than a verdict on his ability.
That steadiness has counted for something in a career defined by changing equipment. Robb has driven for two different teams in four seasons, first Dale Coyne Racing with Rick Ware Racing, then A.J. Foyt Racing beginning in 2024. Each change requires rebuilding chemistry with new engineers and adapting to a different car underneath him, the kind of instability that can wear down a driver who ties too much of his identity to results. Robb has pointed to his faith as the reason that instability has not derailed him.
What Comes Next
IndyCar’s championship fight is dominated by names like Alex Palou, who arrived in Washington chasing a fourth consecutive title, and Pato O’Ward and Kyle Kirkwood, still mathematically alive in the fight. Robb is not part of that conversation this season, and he does not pretend to be. What he has built instead is a reputation as a driver who treats every lap the same way regardless of the stakes, a hot pink cross on the hood as a kid and a Bible verse on the car as an adult, both pointing to the same idea: that his identity does not rise and fall with a finishing position.
The Freedom 250 will not change Robb’s championship outlook. What it offers is a stage, a first-of-its-kind race in front of a new audience, for a driver who has spent four years proving that consistency of character carries its own value alongside consistency of results. Whatever happens on Sunday, Robb will climb out of the car the same way he always has, ready to talk about the race straight, results and all, without letting either extreme define him.
