Unsurprisingly, Jerry Jones was as excited as anyone for Sunday’s INDYCAR race, as the series made its debut on a street course around the Dallas Cowboys‘ AT&T Stadium for the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.
“I said one thing when we first started talking about the idea: it has to be extremely high quality,” Jones told the INDYCAR on FOX pre-race broadcast.
“Everything about it, the track, the equipment, everything involved, it’s beyond anything I could have expected,” Jones said. “We know this had to go up. What have they done to my football stadium? But no, it is great. And to think these guys are going to be upwards of 200 miles an hour in these turns, that just gives me a chill. Start your engines.”
While speaking with the INDYCAR on FOX broadcast pre-race crew, Townsend Bell brought up Jones getting the opportunity to spend a little time with Arrow McLaren star Pato O’Ward, and the broadcaster mentioned his own experience meeting and watching Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, praising his “high energy, his leadership, his enthusiasm.”
[INDYCAR: Everything to Know About the Grand Prix of Arlington]
Bell then asked Jones to share his perspective on O’Ward after decades of working with elite athletes, and Jones was impressed by the No. 5 Chevrolet driver.
“The controlled intensity,” Jones said about O’Ward. “You can feel it, boy, and he’s driving for the marbles. Everything, every motion he has looks [effortless], looks natural.
“Deion Sanders used to say, ‘It’s natural.’ No, Deion worked at every nuance of it because he was intense and wanted to win. And that reminds me of what I see in these great athletes that are driving these cars.”
Ahead of the Java House Grand Prix of Arlington’s green flag, Jones continued to praise the magnitude and challenges of putting on an INDYCAR race outside of AT&T Stadium.
“I don’t know when, logistically, we have been a part of anything that had the coming together, the nuances of everything that it takes to make this work,” Jones told James Hinchcliffe on FOX’s pre-race broadcast. “Tangible and intangible, everything that goes. And it can’t miss because, frankly, this is serious business going up a couple of hundred [miles an hour].”
Follow INDYCAR’s Grand Prix of Arlington LIVE HERE.