Brickyard weekend banner goes up at IMS
SPEEDWAY, Ind. (WISH) — We’re 341 days away from the next running of the Indianapolis 500. But first, another big race weekend comes to the track in August.
“It’s always a little bittersweet when the Indy 500’s over, but it’s nice to be able to have that Brickyard weekend to be able to have more racing,” IMS president Doug Boles said.
The banner’s up, and so is the excitement for the annual Brickyard weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. IMS hopes to build on a busy month of May when NASCAR joins IndyCar in August.
“The NTT IndyCar Series drivers and the NASCAR Cup Series have had some great years in terms of attendance, so I think our attendance is going to be really strong,” Boles said. “For us, I think just having such a strong May with the Indy 500 but even with the AMR Grand Prix to kick things off in the Month of May – qualifying weekend was really busy. I think we’ll have a great crowd, and we’re excited about it.”
This will be the 30th time NASCAR has run a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The Cup cars are back on the road course for the third straight year. However, Boles says there might be something different coming in 2024.
“I think it’s no secret that we talked to people about the potential of maybe going back to the oval at some point in time. I think we’ll sit back down with our friends at NASCAR and try to determine what we want to do with Brickyard weekend as we lead into 2024,” Boles said. “I love the uniqueness of IndyCar and NASCAR on the same weekend, same track. Only place you can see that. I think there’s some value there, but we’re going to have to just look and see what we want to do in 2024 and beyond, and does the oval come back for the Cup cars in some point in time.”
No matter what track NASCAR’s on, it’s a weekend made for racing fans.
“There are still some NASCAR fans that aren’t IndyCar fans, and IndyCar fans that aren’t NASCAR fans, so when you get them to come the same weekend, I hope they leave here being fans of both series,” Boles said.
The fun begins Friday, August 11.