Image: YellowstoneTrinity, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 Public Domain. NTT INDYCAR SERIES race action — Honda has supplied INDYCAR engines through HRC US (formerly Honda Performance Development) since 1993.
Honda launched “Relentless Spirit,” a new multi-channel brand campaign running across broadcast TV, streaming, and social — with a heavy presence during the 2026 Indianapolis 500 on FOX and the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The campaign features the Civic Hybrid, Accord Hybrid, CR-V TrailSport Hybrid, and Prelude Hybrid alongside championship-winning Honda race machines: the Honda IndyCar, Civic Type R TCR, CR-V Hybrid Racer (nicknamed “The Beast”), Honda Talon 1000X, and Africa Twin DCT. The campaign’s central message is that racing spirit is engineered into every Honda hybrid — not as a slogan, but as a structural claim about where the technology comes from. MediaPost
What it means: The claim isn’t just marketing. Honda’s racing subsidiary, HRC US — formerly Honda Performance Development, which has supplied INDYCAR engines since 1993 — recently signed a new multi-year engine supply agreement with the NTT INDYCAR SERIES. In 2028, HRC US delivers a new 2.4-litre twin-turbocharged V6 paired with a low-voltage hybrid unit, and the organization will field its own full-season INDYCAR entry that year specifically to develop technology and personnel. That’s not a sponsorship arrangement. That’s the same engineering group that refined the hybrid energy management systems in the CR-V Hybrid and Accord Hybrid running a factory race team to push those learnings further. For people who drive Hondas in the GTA, the Honda lifestyle — reliable, efficient, quietly capable — has a motorsport engine underneath it that most Honda buyers never see. The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham on August 14–16 is the one weekend a year when that engine runs out loud, on streets 40 minutes from this dealership.
What Honda buyers actually share with Honda race teams
Honda revealed a “Sport Line” and “Trail Line” direction at Tokyo Auto Salon 2026 — two product lines built around HRC expertise applied directly to consumer vehicles. HRC Performance Parts are already in development for the 2026 Prelude, using technologies from Honda’s racing programs to sharpen driving dynamics on a car that already shares its suspension hardware with the Civic Type R. The CR-V Hybrid Racer (“The Beast”) that appears in the “Relentless Spirit” ad isn’t a prop — it’s an actual competition vehicle derived from the same CR-V platform sitting on dealer lots right now.
From the floor at Maple Honda, the thing customers respond to isn’t the spec sheet — it’s the sense that a Honda is doing something at the limit of what it was designed to do, whether that’s fuel economy on the 400, reliability at 200,000 km, or cornering balance on a rain-soaked on-ramp. That’s the same character the “Relentless Spirit” campaign is trying to make visible. The Markham race does it without the ad budget.
My prediction: Within 12 months of HRC US fielding its own full-season INDYCAR entry in 2028, Honda Canada will publicly attribute at least one production vehicle powertrain feature to direct learnings from the INDYCAR hybrid program — following the same technology narrative Honda used when the NSX hybrid system was traced back to F1 development. The “Relentless Spirit” campaign is already laying that story’s foundation. By 2027, the talking point on a CR-V or Accord Hybrid purchase won’t be “great fuel economy” alone — it’ll be a specific engineering detail that came out of the race program.
If you're buying right now: If you’re in a Civic Hybrid, CR-V Hybrid, Accord Hybrid, or Prelude, the same organization that has supplied INDYCAR engines since 1993 designed your hybrid powertrain. The Markham race on August 14 — Free Fan Friday — gets you general admission through a voluntary donation to Make-A-Wish Canada. If you want to experience the engineering culture that built the car in your driveway at full stretch, it’s the most direct way to do it in Ontario this summer.
Curious what Honda's racing heritage actually means for the car you drive?
Happy to walk through the specific models and what the hybrid technology actually does — no jargon, just what matters for your commute, your budget, and your trade-in. I’m at Maple Honda in Vaughan, 40 minutes from the Markham circuit.