INDIANAPOLIS — Questions have circulated for the last several years about the future of NASCAR racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
However Roger Penske, who announced Penske Corp. is buying the speedway on Monday, made it clear NASCAR has a place in the track’s future.
Penske was asked during Monday’s news conference announcing the sale of Hulman & Co., IMS, the NTT IndyCar Series and IMS Productions to Penske Corp. about his commitment to NASCAR and whether the stock-car sanctioning body would continue to have a long-term presence at the 2.5-mile oval.
“When you look at (NASCAR racing at IMS for) 27 years, there’s no reason to break that string of races,” Penske noted. “I had a chance to talk to Jim France late last night to tell him that we were going to have this conference here in the morning, and he obviously was excited. We’ve worked together. We were partners with ISC at Homestead. We actually sold our business to them back several years ago. So we have a very close relationship with Jim (France) and with Steve Phelps and Steve O’Donnell and the entire France family. We would expect to take this for many, many years.
“They (NASCAR) need to run at Indianapolis. We want them to and there’s no question that we’re going to look at opportunities to expand the relationship with them in the future.”
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debuted at IMS on Aug. 6, 1994, with California-born, Indiana-raised young gun Jeff Gordon winning in the inaugural Brickyard 400.
Since then, IMS has hosted 26 Cup Series races, with Gordon leading the wins category with five victories (’94, ’98, ’01, ’04, ’14). Fifteen different drivers have won Cup races at Indianapolis.
The track has also hosted NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series since 2012, with one of Penske’s drivers — Brad Keselowski — triumphing in that division’s debut race at IMS.
NASCAR Chairman & CEO Jim France praised both the outgoing and incoming IMS leadership on Monday in the wake of the historic announcement.
“The Hulman-George family has been instrumental in the growth of motorsports through their passion for racing, elevating Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar Series to a global scale, and we thank them for their leadership and significant contributions to NASCAR,” said France. “Roger Penske is incredibly accomplished across both motorsports and business and we look forward to the successful operation of these properties under his experienced leadership.”
With Penske now leading IMS into the future, additional questions quickly surfaced regarding the feasibility of a NASCAR/IndyCar doubleheader at Indianapolis.
Penske has been publicly quoted as saying he would be in favor of such a combined weekend.
While he stopped short of saying that IMS was a prime location to do so on Monday, Penske did confirm it was a prospect he’d take a look at going into the future.
“I think it was interesting to see Newgarden run around what they call the ROVAL down in Charlotte several weeks ago and I think it was pretty exciting. I think some of the fans had never seen an IndyCar on an oval or a race track,” Penske noted. “These are things that Tony will give us some of his input (on), and certainly Mark and the team … we’ll look at are those things we can do and can we execute those so we bring value here to the speedway.
“We’ve got to break some glass on some of these things, don’t we? We’ve got to try some of this,” Penske added. “I’m prepared to take a risk. No risk equals no reward in many cases. Those are the things that Mark, with him and him team, that we’ll take a look at. I wouldn’t say it’s out of the possibility.”
In fact, there were a lot of things that Penske said might be on the table as he shepherds IMS going forward, including the possibilities of endurance sports-car racing and Formula One racing at the track.
Of note, F-1 previously raced on the IMS grand prix road course from 2000 to 2007.
“We want to add capability … and ask, ‘What can we use this for?’” Penske said. “Can we run a 24-hour race here? Can we run a Formula One race here? What are the things we can do? This (track) is a great asset. Once the tradition had been broken in adding the NASCAR race, which we’re going to get behind in a big way because for 27 years they’ve run here, it opened up many possibilities. I look at all of these across the board to see what we can do.
“This business is not broken,” he pointed out. “This is a great business, and the leadership team that’s been here has done an outstanding job and what we want to do is be a support tool going forward.”