IndyCar Series: AAA AI Trading Card Brand Activation

Across two IndyCar race weekends, Primatix turned AAA's Fan Zone visitors into professional drivers on personalised, collectible AI trading cards, printing more than 1,000 cards a day.

Client: AAA (Auto Club Enterprises)
Locations: Arlington, TX (Grand Prix of Arlington) & Long Beach, CA (Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach)
Date: March to April 2026

The challenge: standing out in the Fan Zone

AAA wanted a Fan Zone activation that went beyond a traditional photo booth and gave fans a high-value keepsake celebrating its sponsorship of Team Penske. The brief set four practical requirements:

• Accurate branding: the AI had to reproduce the Team Penske fire suits, the specific IndyCar models and AAA's own brand marks.
• Location-specific creative: generic track backgrounds for Arlington and the palm-lined skyline for Long Beach.
• High-volume reliability: thousands of fans expected, with no delays at peak footfall.
• Data capture: a straightforward way to collect fan emails and mobile numbers for post-event marketing.

The solution: "pro-driver" AI trading cards

We deployed a multi-booth setup running our custom AI Trading Card technology. Fans stepped into the AAA booth, had their photo taken and were transformed into professional IndyCar drivers in seconds. Getting the output right took close work with AAA: we trained the model to render the fire suits faithfully, keep the race gloves consistent and reproduce logos such as the AAA collar mark in high fidelity. After the photo, fans scanned a QR code to enter their details, which unlocked their digital card and triggered a high-speed physical print. Each card came in a protective plastic sleeve, turning a digital moment into a physical collectible.

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The results

• More than 1,000 physical cards printed on-site and handed to fans each day.
• Thousands of unique fan records captured through the scan-and-save workflow.
• A hit across all ages, with AAA members singling out the crew's patience with children and fans with special needs.
• AAA's internal stakeholders, including the Chief Marketing Officer, used the digital-only link to share the experience across the wider organisation.

Why it worked

The AI solved the costume problem: fans didn't need to dress up, because the fire suit and race car were applied digitally for a professional look in seconds. Our four-person crew kept the queues moving through the busiest periods, and the plastic sleeves made each card feel like genuine memorabilia rather than a disposable flyer. The QR workflow did double duty, driving immediate social sharing while meeting AAA's data-capture goals.

The same format travels. Qlik's All-Star cards pulled live leaderboard scores at a data conference, Visit Pittsburgh's cards at IMEX worked a trade show floor, and Lenovo's F1 activation met the same motorsport branding accuracy problem.

By pairing IndyCar's race-day energy with generative AI, Primatix gave AAA a Fan Zone experience that fans queued across the concourse to take part in.