IndyCar: The one track that didn’t make it back onto the 2021 schedule

One track which was on the final 2020 IndyCar schedule will not host any races in the 2021 season, which is set to begin this weekend.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 IndyCar schedule ended up looking absolutely nothing like it looked when it was released in September 2019.

Instead of 17 races being contested at 16 different tracks at 15 different venues, the season, the start of which was delayed by over two and a half months, saw just 14 races contested at only eight different tracks at seven different venues.

Five tracks hosted multiple races to make up for venues which had to be axed from the calendar.

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The eight venues which were on the original 2020 schedule but were axed from the calendar included Barber Motorsports Park, the streets of Long Beach, Circuit of the Americas, the streets of Belle Isle, Richmond Raceway, the streets of Toronto, Portland International Raceway and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Two of those tracks, Circuit of the Americas and Richmond Raceway, didn’t end up back on the 2021 schedule. The former only ended up hosting a race in 2019, and the latter, which hadn’t hosted a race since 2009 before it was added to the 2020 calendar, still hasn’t hosted a race since 2009.

However, there is also one track which actually did play host to a race — actually two — in the 2020 season that is not back on the schedule for 2021.

That track is unfortunately Iowa Speedway, which had produced some of the best racing the sport has seen in recent years.

Entering the 2020 season, the four-turn, 0.894-mile (1.439-kilometer) oval in Newton, Iowa had hosted an IndyCar race in each of the last 13 seasons, and it was slated to do so for a 14th consecutive year. Due to the other casualties on the schedule, it hosted both its 14th and 15th races in 2020.

But it is sadly not among the 14 tracks at 13 venues set to host 17 races throughout the 2021 season, and there isn’t a ton of optimism regarding a return in the future either.

Tune in to NBC at 3:00 p.m. ET this Sunday, April 18 for the live broadcast of the 2021 IndyCar season-opening Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama presented by AmFirst from Barber Motorsports Park.