Oscar Mayer’s Wienie 500 Is Again for Extra Laps

Wieniermobiles, begin your engines. 

That phrase kicks off the “Wienie 500” — the Indy 500-style race that includes six Weinermobiles that broke the web final 12 months. It’s now again for an additional spherical, zooming onto your tv screens on Could 22, as Oscar Mayer tells Meals & Wine. 

Should you didn’t catch final 12 months’s Wienie 500, contemplate it required viewing. Six of Oscar Mayer’s roving scorching canines compete in a four-lap race across the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, accelerating to a “sensational” 60 miles per hour in 26 seconds. It’s bizarre, it’s foolish, and it’s completely enjoyable.

“We expect the rationale is kind of easy — it made folks blissful. Oscar Mayer’s mission, courting again to the Eighteen Eighties, is to spark smiles, and that’s precisely what the Wienie 500 did,” Oscar Mayer model communications director Kelsey Rice tells Meals & Wine. “It offered a wanted dose of pleasure, delightfully disarming America in a means solely a model with a fleet of 27-foot scorching canines on wheels might.”

The recent dog-shaped autos aren’t notably aerodynamic, but in some way zip across the observe with an absurd sense of urgency. It’s a stable show of sportsmanship, in my humble opinion. Have a look for your self:

Greater than 80,000 attendees watched the race in particular person final 12 months (15,000 greater than the 2025 Tremendous Bowl, by the way in which). One other 8 million viewers tuned in to the livestream, which is how I’ll be having fun with the race this 12 months.

As for the 2026 contestants, Oscar Mayer’s taking us on a visit by way of America’s most iconic regional scorching canine types. Six glossy Weinermobiles compete for this 12 months’s title: Slaw Canine (Southeast), Chi Canine (Midwest), New York Canine (East), Chili Canine (South), and Seattle Canine (Northwest). Organizers minimize the Sonoran Canine from the lineup this 12 months, in order that they’re letting followers determine the sixth contestant through an Instagram ballot. (Followers can nominate considered one of six regional scorching canines beginning tomorrow, or choose to provide Sonoran one other likelihood.) 

The beloved Slaw Canine snagged the title final 12 months, barreling throughout the end line at prime velocity and pushing out the Chi Canine for the trophy. Commentators famous it was a detailed race, so contemplate it anybody’s title this time round.

“People from completely different areas of the nation are extremely obsessed with how they prime their scorching canines,” Rice explains. “That is one thing we hear on a regular basis, so we knew it was the right option to give followers a option to root for his or her favorites and really feel like that they had a stake within the race.”

Greater than 500,000 scorching canines had been bought ultimately 12 months’s Indy 500, the model says, and its crew is keen to spice up these numbers in 2026. Alongside these summertime snacks, Oscar Mayer’s kitschy raceday traditions embody customized decals on every Wienermobile, “Hotdogger” fits for the drivers, a devoted anthem, and a winners’ circle — err, “wieners circle” — podium.

Throughout the board, Oscar Mayer is basically kicking off heat climate with quintessentially American fare. Watching six Wienermobiles race on the Indy 500 observe is a fairly good spot to begin.