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IndyCar set for rare post-Indy 500 stretch not seen since 2011

By Asher Fair

Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing, Indy 500, IndyCar (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Helio Castroneves, Meyer Shank Racing, Indy 500, IndyCar (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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There is no race on the IndyCar schedule following Indy 500 weekend, something that the series hasn’t been able to say in 10 years.

On Sunday afternoon, Meyer Shank Racing’s Helio Castroneves secured a record-tying fourth Indy 500 victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the race’s 105th running.

The 46-year-old Brazilian, who hasn’t competed full-time in IndyCar since 2017, also won the race as a rookie in 2001 before winning controversially in 2002 and then adding a third win in 2009. He joined an exclusive club of four-time winners that had included only A.J. Foyt, Al Unser and Rick Mears since Mears’s fourth victory in 1991.

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Castroneves, who hadn’t won a race since he won at Iowa Speedway four years ago, will remain IndyCar’s most recent race winner for a week longer than any Indy 500 winner over the last 10 years.

For the first time since 2011, there is no IndyCar race on the calendar the week after the Indy 500.

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In 2011, the series had off the weekend after Dan Wheldon became a two-time Indy 500 winner when race leader J.R. Hildebrand crashed in the final turn on the final lap. Texas Motor Speedway hosted a doubleheader two weekends later.

Then in 2012, the Raceway at Belle Isle, which was not on the schedule from 2009 to 2011, returned to the calendar, and it returned to the calendar the week after the Indy 500. It returned in 2013 in the form of a doubleheader, and that doubleheader remained on the schedule for the next several years.

The track was removed from the 2020 calendar as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Indy 500 itself was postponed by roughly three months from Sunday, May 24 to Sunday, August 23.

But a doubleheader still followed the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” the weekend after, with this one taking place at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway on the final weekend in August.

Save for 2012, the most recent season during which the Raceway at Belle Isle hosted just one event, the last time the Indy 500 wasn’t followed by a doubleheader was in 2010 when Texas Motor Speedway hosted a race the following Saturday night.

This year’s Indy 500 is set to be followed by a doubleheader for the ninth straight season, but not for another two weekends.

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The Raceway at Belle Isle is scheduled to host the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix on Saturday, June 12 and Sunday, June 13. Both races are set to be broadcast live on NBC, with the former set to begin at 2:00 p.m. ET and the latter set to begin at 12:40 p.m. ET.