NASCAR began racing at the iconic brickyard back in 1994, and ever since, several drivers have won at the crown jewel event. However, it was the 2021 season when NASCAR had the brilliant idea of racing on the road course layout instead of the legendary oval. Ever since then, several people within the sports community have been asking to return to the oval format.
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Recently, while speaking to Sirius XM NASCAR, a Goodyear executive hinted that racing at the oval once again could be a reality very soon. After all, who would not want to have a shot at winning a crown jewel event in the proper way, the oval way?
NASCAR insider hints on returning to the Indy Oval
Greg Stucker of Goodyear Racing told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, “We’re gonna go to Indy and run the oval. We just feel like there was enough discussion around, potentially going back to the Oval in the future. Let’s go ahead and take the opportunity to get on that racetrack in the Oval configuration with the next-gen car. We haven’t run the next-gen car on the oval. We’ve only run the road course.”
“I hate to bring it up the last time we took a new car to Indianapolis that didn’t fare too terribly well from a tire perspective. So we want to stay ahead of that we want to get a first look at it. So that if the decision is made at some point in the future to go back to the oval, then at least we kind of know we have a good starting point with this car. And so then we can go from there.”
🧱 A return to the Indy oval?@GoodyearRacing‘s Greg Stucker says they’ll conduct a test on the @IMS oval later this year.
👀 “There’s enough discussion around potentially going back to the oval in the future, let’s go ahead and take the opportunity to get on that race track.” pic.twitter.com/jxUhdPYveI
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) July 12, 2023
“We always feel like we need to go back a couple of times at Indy and test and get prepared for an oval race if that’s going to be the decision, but we just feel like it was a good opportunity to go ahead and run. You know, gather some data, and see where it stands. We haven’t run that Oval for a while.”
“So we’ll see how that now that surface has aged you know in the course of a few years since we’ve run there. So just seems like a good time to put a mark in the sand and then decide what we would need to do if, in fact, we you know, we do decide to take that step.”
Roger Penske’s comments on NASCAR’s imminent Indy Oval return
Earlier the Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner, Rodger Penske, had apparently spoken with the media where he mentioned a possible move to the Ovals for the Cup Series. Although he indicated that there could be a possibility to have cars race on both the road course and the oval every alternating year.
As per The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi, “Roger Penske says NASCAR will remain on the IMS road course for 2023, but is evaluating whether to switch to the oval in 2024. He mentions alternating years between the road course and oval is one option under consideration.“
If, in any case, NASCAR decides to go racing on the Oval in 2024, it would definitely have answered the calls of several within the racing fraternity. Of course, the racing would be spectacular and would also give the opportunity for the drivers to try and win at the crown jewel event.
