'A much-anticipated homecoming': NASCAR, IMS return Brickyard 400 to oval for 2024

If there still existed any doubts, they can be put to bed.

For the first time in four years – and the first time in five years that fans have been able to watch in-person – Indianapolis Motor Speedway and NASCAR officials will host the Cup Series’ lone visit on the 2.5-mile oval.

Next year’s Brickyard 400 – the 30th anniversary of Jeff Gordon’s inaugural win on Aug. 6, 1994 – will be held Sunday, July 21, the logo for which will give a nod to that debut race with its flashes of gold and purple that became synonymous with NASCAR’s early days at the Racing Capital of the World.

IMS president Doug Boles did his best to mask his excitement last month, as rumors swirled during the NASCAR-IndyCar crossover weekend as to the future of the event, given Goodyear’s private tire test on the oval with Cup’s Next Gen car. As ultimately proved true, the series’ lone tire manufacturer typically doesn’t test without the future trending in that direction.

The Xfinity series will also move to the oval, with its Pennzoil 250 to be held Saturday, July 20.

“While it’s been exciting to watch the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series drivers tackle the IMS road course over the last three years, being back on the oval for the 30th anniversary is a much-anticipated homecoming for drivers and fans alike,” Boles said in a release Thursday. “Whether you’ve been with us all 30 years or are a new fan, the celebration as we ‘come back around’ will be can’t-miss and truly unforgettable.”

Kevin Harvick, the 47-year-old NASCAR veteran who is set to retire at the end of this Cup season, won the last two editions of Cup’s Brickyard 400, meaning the track won’t have a chance at crowning the first back-to-back-to-back winner on the oval in Cup or IndyCar history. Two active Cup drivers in 2024 have won on the oval: Kyle Busch (2015-16) and Brad Keselowski ('18).

Harvick’s third career Brickyard 400 win came during the pandemic-altered 2020 campaign, a season in which IMS ultimately didn’t host fans for either of its two major race weekends. To help streamline its event weekends, NASCAR and IndyCar jointly ran a race weekend at the same track for the first time in their respective histories that year – Cup on the oval and Xfinity and IndyCar on the road course. That evolved for the next three years iinto a historic tripleheader weekend all on IMS’s road course.

NASCAR drivers react to Brickyard 400 return

Cup drivers’ reactions were mixed. A largely youthful contingent would say they to grew up watching their heroes Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Gordon race and win on the oval and dreamt of doing the same, but they also just simply loved the idea of racing to a checkered flag across the famous Yard of Bricks.

Legends of the sport – most notably Harvick – seemed to find joy at deeming the road course "lesser than", with the 47-year-old saying once saying it was "a disgrace" for the Cup Series to run on a course he compared to racing "in a parking lot."  

Fellow multi-time Brickyard 400 winner Busch spouted off in April of this year, saying, "I don't know why we ever went to the road course, to be honest with you. I don't think it did an uptick or changed a damn thing at Indy. If we can't do a good enough job getting enough people to Indy to suffice us staying on the oval, then we need to go somewhere else."

Pointedly, in a unique, brash show of appreciation for the road course, last month’s Verizon 200 winner Michael McDowell called the impending move back to the oval "lame" and called for the likely never-to-happen dream of NASCAR running both courses in the same season – or even the same weekend.

“You know me, I’m biased. I want to run on as many road courses as we can, but I do understand the prestigiousness of running the Brickyard and being on the oval,” McDowell said after his August win, just the second of his Cup career. “I do think that this Next Gen car is going to put on a good race – a better race than our previous generation car here.”

Ironically, after four consecutive years of sharing the same track on the same weekend, NASCAR and IndyCar will race on the same day during the Brickyard weekend at separate tracks − in separate countries − for just the third time, including the open-wheel series' 2009 and 2010 visits to Edmonton. IndyCar will race that day in Toronto, and it will air on Peacock, eliminating the chance that it would lead into NASCAR's IMS oval return.

A decade or more of previous iterations of the Brickyard 400 had largely been single-file processional affairs and those at the front battling for the lead often only able to overtake when those in front made a mistake or suffered lengthy pitstops. Presently in the second year of Cup’s Next Gen era, Boles, NASCAR officials and drivers have faith that next year’s race will be more exciting.

What the track will see in terms of attendance is anyone’s guess, though it would seem likely that the historic anniversary and the switch back to the race’s roots would point to a Sunday crowd that would top the “well over 60,000” IMS officials reported to IndyStar this year – which stood as the best in at least seven years. Up until the tire debacle of 2008, the race would regularly draw well over 200,000 fans, but the carnage of that race, where race control was forced to throw competition cautions every 10-12 laps for tires constantly falling apart, triggered a drastic fall to just 160,000 fans in 2009. A decade later, it was in the 20,000-30,000 range.

“I think there’s no denying that the oval is going to be a much more boring race, probably,” 2021 NASCAR champion Kyle Larson said in August. “I think just the prestige of the oval, we would all rather win on the oval than the road course, I think.

“When you think of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, you don’t think of the road course. The Brickyard 400 is a crown jewel event that we lost. So if we can get it back on the oval, it would be great for our sport.”

Even so, Boles has often talked over these last four years about finding some sort of regular rotation between the oval and road course for NASCAR, so whether to oval is back for good is unclear. Future plans were not mentioned in Thursday’s release, though Boles told IndyStar last month that a lot of it may depend on fan reaction.

“I enjoy being on the oval, but a lot of folks at NASCAR, they need it to be a good race. We need to be able to race each other,” 23XI driver Tyler Reddick said in August. “And if we really can’t race each other and pass well, I don’t know if we really should run the oval.

“We’ll see shortly.”