BROWNSBURG, Ind. – Lucas Oil Raceway officials confirmed the .686-mile oval’s 2021 schedule of open-wheel events Tuesday morning, with three major shows on offer.
Next year will kick off with the return of the Carb Night Classic at LOR, featuring the Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires, the USAC Silver Crown Series and pavement midgets.
The Carb Night Classic, scheduled for Friday, May 28, returns after a one-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will feature a $5,000-to-win purse for the pavement midgets and a $10,000-to-win purse for the USAC Silver Crown event.
Next on the calendar will be a new event with famed historical roots, as the Thursday Night Thunder Homecoming takes center stage on Thursday, June 17, and fittingly draws its inspiration from the days that ESPN’s famed Thursday Night Thunder series graced the television sets of motorsports fans around the United States.
The Thursday Night Thunder Homecoming will feature pavement sprint cars and midgets anchoring the schedule, much like the original version decades ago, when names like Gordon, Stewart, Newman, and Kahne were thrust into the vocabularies of fans nationwide.
The special night will include a $5,000 to-win pavement midget event and the return of pavement sprints with a $5,000-to-win purse.
Concluding the three-race set will be the inaugural Hoosier Classic, scheduled for early July of 2021 in conjunction with NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 race weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Exact dates will be finalized upon the release of the 2021 NASCAR schedule.
The Friday night event will kick off with sprint cars chasing a $10,000 to-win purse, followed by midgets competing for a $10,000 to-win purse and the USAC Silver Crown Series chasing $12,000 to win on Saturday.
“We are excited to be able to announce our 2021 schedule for the Oval at Lucas Oil Raceway to give fans, teams, and drivers plenty of time to plan their travels and preparations for 2021,” said Lucas Oil Raceway General Manager Kasey Coler. “This year, we were fortunate enough to reintroduce the Night Before the 500 on Saturday, Aug. 22, with the return of pavement sprint cars and midgets to Lucas Oil Raceway. This schedule announcement allows us to build off that momentum.
“We are fortunate to have great partners and groups to work with at Lucas Oil
Raceway,” Coler added. “Bob Sargent and that team at Track Enterprise, Levi Jones
and the team at USAC, Dan Andersen and the Road to Indy as well as Rick Dawson
and Jared Owen at Anderson Speedway have been instrumental in coordinating the
return of great pavement racing to Lucas Oil Raceway.”
More information on the individual events will be revealed as plans progress further.