At a Formula 1 race weekend, Pacsun is betting that a cowboy hat and a racing jacket can belong to the same outfit. In Austin, the meeting of Texas workwear and Grand Prix imagery gives fans a way to dress for the event without looking like they stepped out of a team garage.
The fashion retailer turned that idea into a trackside pop-up at the United States Grand Prix, held October 23 to 25. In an October 26 announcement, Pacsun said sales at its Austin shop rose again, adding a commercial result to a collaboration built around the things people wear and collect at a race.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- Why Austin gave the collection a Western twist
- What Pacsun’s trackside growth figures actually measure
- What marketers can learn from race weekend merchandise
Why Austin gave the collection a Western twist
Austin’s contribution to the Formula 1 wardrobe was visible in the products. Pacsun’s signature red trackside shop stocked washed denim, vintage-inspired racing graphics and metallic details, with Western touches that belonged to the host city rather than a generic motorsport souvenir rack.
Pieces in the Formula 1 collection include a Pole Position Racing Jacket, Western-style shirts and branded tops. Pacsun’s limited-edition Formula 1 cowboy hat also returned as a trackside exclusive after the previous year’s version sold out within hours. The reported sellout describes 2025, not the current event.
The outfit is the story as much as the logo. A denim jacket with racing references can be worn long after the race; a cowboy hat makes the Austin setting part of the keepsake. That matters to an audience buying a reminder of a weekend, not simply a shirt bearing a sports property.
What Pacsun’s trackside growth figures actually measure
Pacsun is presenting the Austin shop as a repeatable piece of its partnership with Formula 1, which began in 2022. It returned for a fourth United States Grand Prix retail appearance in 2026, using the same race-weekend setting to test new merchandise rather than treating the collaboration as a single merchandise drop.
19% year-on-year growth; more than 177% since 2023. Pacsun says those figures refer to sales at its Austin trackside pop-up, compared with 2025 and with its first Austin appearance in 2023. The company did not disclose the underlying revenue totals.
The distinction is important. This is a sales claim for one event-based retail operation, not a measure of the entire retailer’s revenue, of all Formula 1 merchandise sales, or of wider fan sentiment. The reported growth is meaningful evidence of demand at that location, while its commercial scale remains undisclosed.
Richard Cox, Pacsun’s chief merchandising officer, said: “Formula 1 continues to influence fashion and youth culture, and we’re seeing that firsthand through the response to our collections.” The statement describes the retailer’s interpretation of its results, rather than an independent assessment of Formula 1 fans.
An earlier look at the capsule also noted Pacsun’s sports-fashion work with the Los Angeles Rams, LAFC and Angel City FC. Those broader partnerships give the Austin shop context: the retailer is repeatedly using sports as a setting for apparel, while the US Grand Prix adds a particularly recognizable local dress code.
What marketers can learn from race weekend merchandise
The appeal of a trackside shop is easy to picture: an outfit can become part of attending the race, and a limited item can carry the memory of a particular place. Pacsun’s Austin experiment illustrates three useful considerations for brands approaching sports communities.
- Design for the place, not just the logo. Western workwear signals Austin in a way that another generic racing graphic might not. The local reference gives the collaboration a reason to exist at this specific event.
2. Give the physical moment a distinct offering. Trackside exclusives create a concrete difference between visiting the shop and browsing a standard product page. That difference can support demand, even though the announcement does not disclose how many exclusive items were sold.
3. Keep the measurement tied to the experience. Pacsun reported trackside sales growth. Marketing teams should evaluate comparable pop-ups at the same level before claiming broader brand lift or fandom-wide conversion.
Sportswear retailers often compete for the same visual codes: team marks, speed motifs and limited-edition product labels. Here, the memorable detail is less about the Formula 1 logo and more about making the clothes feel like Austin.
The longer relationship also matters. A recurring race-weekend retail presence gives a brand multiple opportunities to refine the mix of goods and city references, although the disclosed figures cannot tell us which design choice produced the increase.
For marketers, the lesson is not that every event needs a cowboy hat. It is that fan merchandise becomes more distinctive when it connects the event, the host city and a wearable product that people can recognize outside the venue.
