Caitlin Clark Named Indy 500 Grand Marshal as Fans Roast Angel Reese All Over Again
Caitlin Clark is about to add Indy 500 Grand Marshal to her resume, and within ten minutes of the announcement, the entire internet had the same Angel Reese joke ready to go.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway named the Indiana Fever star the Grand Marshal of the 110th Indianapolis 500 on May 24. Clark will deliver the most famous command in motorsports, telling drivers to start their engines before the green flag drops. Brendan Fraser will serve as honorary starter, and Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti will drive the pace car.
Then the comments section did what comments sections do.
Fans flooded social media with the same recycled gag. Angel Reese should be the honorary pit crew member. Angel Reese should be in charge of rebounds at the racetrack. Angel Reese should chase down anything Clark misses. The jokes wrote themselves because Reese herself put the target on her own back with two seasons of leading the league in rebounds while also leading the league in missed bunnies at the rim.
It is a brutal corner of the internet, and it is also fair game. Reese has built her brand on confrontation and Clark comparisons. When Clark gets handed a once-in-a-lifetime honor in her own city, the fanbase she has built is going to take the layup.
This is a real moment for Clark, though. The Indy 500 Grand Marshal role is reserved for figures with a meaningful connection to Indianapolis. Tony Stewart has done it. Steve McQueen did it. Anthony Hopkins did it. Indiana governors do it. The list is not made up of WNBA rookies coming off their second pro season. Clark earned the slot because she put Indiana basketball back on the national map and tripled the Fever’s average attendance the second she put on a uniform.
The bigger story here is what the Indy 500 sees. The race has been losing American TV ratings for two decades. Booking the most popular basketball player in the country, in a market that lives and dies with her, is the kind of crossover swing the IndyCar series has been begging for. Clark gives them a guaranteed pop on Memorial Day weekend and a cultural moment Penske can sell to advertisers all the way through next year’s race.
For Clark, this is the kind of public coronation that confirms what was already obvious. She is the face of women’s basketball, full stop. The Grand Marshal title is bigger than any in-game milestone. It says the city of Indianapolis considers her one of their own, alongside Peyton Manning, Reggie Miller, and the franchise quarterbacks who built the place.
And no, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway did not announce a role for Angel Reese. There is no honorary rebounder. There is no co-pilot. There is no second-place ceremony. Clark gets the mic, Fraser gets the flag, and the internet gets another viral day at Reese’s expense.
The race goes off Sunday, May 24. Expect a packed grandstand, a roar that lasts five minutes when Clark grabs the mic, and one more round of jokes that the WNBA’s biggest rivalry just cannot stop fueling.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
