NASCAR: Indianapolis road course in play for future events?

Could the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course be in play to host NASCAR races in the future instead of the famed 2.5-mile oval?

The Brickyard 400, officially known as the Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard, was contested for the 26th time on Sunday, September 8. The NASCAR Cup Series has competed at Indianapolis Motor Speedway annually since 1994. The Xfinity Series began competing at the track in 2012 and has competed there annually ever since.

But especially in recent years, the NASCAR racing at the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana has drawn criticism.

The track itself is not particularly conducive to great racing featuring 3,200-pound stock cars, and that didn’t exactly change Sunday during the Kevin Harvick beatdown that took place — even with the new rules package.

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On top of that, in general, NASCAR exceeds IndyCar in every measure as it pertains to popularity. This is the case even factoring in NASCAR’s recent decline and IndyCar‘s recent surge.

Yet compared to the Brickyard on Memorial Day Sunday when 33 open-wheel cars show up to run the Indianapolis 500, it’s a ghost town when 40 stock cars show up to run 160 laps, to the point where the idea that the Brickyard 400 is truly a crown jewel race has been brought into question.

As a result, there have been calls for Indianapolis Motor Speedway to consider hosting a race on its road course as opposed to its oval.

Here is what Indianapolis Motor Speedway track president J. Douglas Boles had to say about the matter prior to the Brickyard 400 and Harvick’s domination in it, according to NASCAR.

"“We have considered the road course and we still continue to talk about it. I think the challenge for us, especially with respect to the Monster Energy (NASCAR Cup Series), is where we’re really an oval brand and the Monster Energy Cup is really an oval brand and…what makes running here special is winning on the oval where Ray Harroun won, where AJ Foyt won, where Wilbur Shaw, you can just go through the list of names, where Jeff Gordon won. That’s what really makes this special.”"

He added the following as it pertains to the possibility of testing the idea with the Xfinity Series first.

"“We’re considering everything. We talk to Scott (Borchetta, of Big Machine Records) all the time about opportunities, changes. We’re not afraid to change if we think that change is going to make the event better and, like I said, the road course is something we’ve talked about, it’s just not on the horizon yet.”"

What is ironic about Boles’s statement is the fact that a crash during the Brickyard 400 led Brad Keselowski to criticize the positioning of a portion of the inside retaining wall.

While he escaped unharmed when his car slid into the tire barrier protecting this wall, he was adamant that this portion of the wall was in a terrible position as it pertains to driver safety.

The problem is that it needs to be there because of the track’s road course.

There have been calls for other tracks on the schedule to host road course races instead of oval races as well. Pocono Raceway has hosted Cup Series races on its oval since the 1974 season and two races per season since the 1982 season, and there has been speculation that it could host a road course race at some point in the near future.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Motor Speedway has already taken this route. After hosting two races each season on its oval since the 1960 season, the track and NASCAR agreed to host one race on the oval and one on the track’s interior road course/roval starting last year. The second annual race on the roval is scheduled to be contested later this month.

While it has only one date on both the Cup Series schedule and the Xfinity Series schedule, could the Brickyard take a similar path?

Will the NASCAR Cup Series and/or Xfinity Series races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway be moved to the track’s road course instead of the track’s oval at some point in the future? According to track president J. Douglas Boles, that is an option.