NASCAR has become an embarrassment to Indianapolis Motor Speedway

NASCAR has become an embarrassment to the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the 2020 schedule change involving the track highlights this.

The Brickyard 400 was added to the NASCAR Cup Series in the 1994 season, and it has remained on the schedule ever since. From the 1994 season through the 2006 season, it was held on the first weekend in August. From the 2007 season through the 2017 season, it was held on either the fourth or fifth Sunday in July.

The 160-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana was moved to the second Sunday of September for the 2018 season, although rain forced it to be held on the second Monday of the month. It remained on this Sunday on the 2019 schedule.

But the Brickyard 400 is on the move again for the 2020 season, and its move is one that has left many fans scratching their heads when assessing the newly released 2020 schedule that otherwise features some very positive changes. Beginning in the 2020 season, the race is scheduled to be held on July 4th, Independence Day, weekend.

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This schedule slot is one that has been occupied by the season’s second race at Daytona International Speedway in every season since the 1959 season, which was the first season during which NASCAR races were held at the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked oval in Daytona Beach, Florida, expect for the 1998 season.

In the 1998 season, this race was held in mid-October as a result of widespread wildfires in central Florida. It was originally scheduled to take place during July 4th weekend.

But in an apparent attempt to try to glorify a race that will never, ever truly be a crown jewel on the schedule despite the fact that it is contested at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, NASCAR has tossed aside its tradition of making its annual July 4th weekend trip to arguably (okay, not arguably) the sport’s most historic track.

Meanwhile, Daytona International Speedway is scheduled to host the final regular season race on the final Saturday night in August.

It boils down to a few things. First and most importantly, Daytona International Speedway is NASCAR. Indianapolis Motor Speedway isn’t. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is IndyCar. Period. NASCAR does not have even close to the history at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that IndyCar has, and it never, ever will no matter how hard anybody tries to glorify the Brickyard 400.

But even with that said, there is far more to it than that.

In general, Cup Series racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway has been lackluster over the years. Whether that continues to be the case with the new rules package remains to be seen, but it pales in comparison to the racing that has made the Indianapolis 500, which is contested annually on Memorial Day Sunday at the track, the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” over the course of the 108 years that it has been contested a total of 102 times.

Kyle Busch led the final 109 laps of the 2016 Brickyard 400, and after taking the pole position for the 2017 Brickyard 400, he led the race’s first 71 laps.

When’s the last time an IndyCar driver led 180 laps in a row at Indianapolis Motor Speedway? Even in a “down” year last year, the Indy 500 featured 30 lead changes among 15 different drivers, a driver total that tied the all-time race record from 2017.

Meanwhile, from the time Busch took the lead in the 2016 Brickyard 400 to the time he relinquished it in the 2017 running of the race, a total of 15 IndyCar drivers led the Indy 500, and they exchanged the lead a total of 35 times.

Lackluster racing and Indianapolis Motor Speedway don’t go together, not when anyone who knows the history of the track, at least, considers these two subjects. But add NASCAR into the mix, and they’re a perfect match.

When it comes to NASCAR and IndyCar, NASCAR leads in many categories when it comes to popularity, and this the case even despite NASCAR’s recent popularity decline and IndyCar’s recent popularity surge. Overall attendance and television ratings are just two metrics that illustrate that NASCAR is still well ahead of IndyCar on many levels.

But Indianapolis Motor Speedway is one battle with IndyCar that NASCAR has no chance of winning, and it’s an utter embarrassment that they even considered trying, especially at the expense of a July 4th tradition involving the sport’s true most historic track.

The Brickyard 400 has pretty much always been and will always be a NASCAR race that IndyCar fan, specifically NASCAR haters, can watch and simply laugh at the attendance, especially when comparing it to the attendance of the Indy 500, the most attended single-day sporting event year in and year out.

Even if this schedule change slightly improves attendance for the Brickyard 400, which is highly unlikely as it is, it won’t be enough to change this, and the attempt to glorify this race with a move to July 4th weekend in itself will only make the embarrassment worse for NASCAR even if the racing itself improves with the new rules package.