Indy 500: Traditions aside, the 104th means more than ever

By Asher Fair | Aug 22, 2020

Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske, IndyCar, Indy 500 (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images) /

This year’s Indy 500 is the only double points race of the 2020 IndyCar race season, and the season is a shortened one.

It goes without saying that multiple Indy 500 traditions have been brought to an end this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Most notably, the race was not held on Memorial Day Sunday, or in May at all, and no fans will be allowed to attend.

But even with all traditions aside, the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” is always going to be the most important race, the one race on the schedule that everybody wants to win.

The winner of the 104th running of the 200-lap race around the four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in Speedway, Indiana will be deemed just as deserving of a winner as each of the other 73 winners (or 72 if we have a repeat winner), even with nobody there to spectate.

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And this year, from a pure competition standpoint, that importance is magnified.

The 2020 season has been shortened from its original 17-race schedule down to 14 races, with only 12 races currently on the schedule following the postponement of the doubleheader at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The sport hasn’t seen a season with only 14 races since 2006, and it hasn’t seen a season with fewer than 14 races since 2001.

But the Indy 500 is still a double points-paying race, with 100 points going to the winner as opposed to 50, 80 points going to the runner-up as opposed to 40, and so on.

IndyCar introduced double points to the series back in 2014 for the “Triple Crown”, which included the Indy 500 and the races at Pocono Raceway and the season finale at Auto Club Speedway.

Double points for the “Triple Crown” were done away with after 2014, but they stayed for the Indy 500 and for the season finale, which was moved to Sonoma Raceway.

The Indy 500 and the season finale have been double points races ever since. Sonoma Raceway hosted the final race up until 2018 before WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca took over in 2019.

But before the 2020 season got underway in early June, IndyCar announced that due to the pandemic, the season finale, which was moved from WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca to the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, the site of the planned season opener in March, would no longer be a double points race.

However, the Indy 500 would still be worth twice as much as the average race, giving it the highest percentage of a season’s point total in an individual race since the three-race Indy Racing League season back in 1996.

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Tune in to NBC tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the 104th running of the Indianapolis 500 from Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The green flag is set to wave at roughly 2:30 p.m. ET.