Plusses & Minuses of the 2024 Schedule
The 2024 NTT IndyCar Series schedule was released on Monday morning. Like most things, there were some positives and negatives. I’ll break it down fairly simply – citing both the good and the bad.
First of all, here is the schedule showing dates and TV information. Specific times will be announced later.
The Good: The biggest positive is the addition of The Milwaukee Mile. We had been hearing all summer that this was gaining momentum. But it was only in the last month that I was convinced it would happen as soon as next season. The Mile will be a double-header over Labor Day weekend. It’s a year from now, but that is certainly a race that we plan to attend.
Susan and I made a point to check out The Milwaukee Mile back in 2016, on our way back from Road America. There was nothing going on, but we were able to get in and look the place over. My feeling was that its days were numbered and I wanted to at least be able to visit the site, before it fell to the wrecking ball. Now that it is back on the schedule for the first time since 2015, we certainly plan to be there.
Another positive is that there will be two Saturday night races – one at Gateway, and the other being Race One at Iowa. Night races are magical to go to. I learned to love them while attending the oval races at Nashville Superspeedway in the 2000s. The cars just glimmer as they go by, unless it carries a dreaded matte finish. Then they just sort of lay there.
Night racing had been a part of IndyCar going back to the 90s. 2022 was the first year without a scheduled night race, but we got lucky when Gateway experienced a rain delay that year. This past season, once again, was scheduled to not have any night races. It held true, but practice and qualifying was rained out on Saturday, so the lights were turned on and it was dark when the final practice was over. Does that count? We don’t have to hope for rain delays in 2024, with two night races scheduled. That makes me almost as happy as the return to Milwaukee.
With Iowa and Milwaukee both being double-headers, along with Gateway and the Indianapolis 500 – that means there are six oval races on the seventeen-race schedule next season.
The last positive? We get one more event next season. The seventeen-race schedule does not count the non-points event at The Thermal Club in late March. Count that and it’s an eighteen race season, albeit three venues will be hosting two races.
The Bad: Of course, the elephant in the room is there will be no IndyCar race at Texas Motor Speedway for the first time since the track opened in 1997. The race there this past spring was an exceptional race. I also learned firsthand what an impressive facility it is. But as I detailed last week, IndyCar has been shoved to the back burner at Texas.
I don’t really blame IndyCar for this. It is my understanding that series officials were given a September date at the last minute as an alternative, while NASCAR gets the April date. IndyCar is contractually bound to host the season-finale in Nashville next season on Sep 15. That date is set in stone, meaning nothing can be scheduled afterward. Due to the Olympic break imposed by NBC, late August and early September are crammed full. There was just no more room. Track officials were unwilling to bend, so IndyCar really had no choice. If Texas can return in a more favorable slot in 2025 – I guess we can live with this. The problem is, I feel Texas is probably gone for good.
One of the consequences of losing Texas is a huge gap in the spring, where Texas was supposed to be – creating another negative to this schedule. The season starts March 10, with the usual season-opener at St. Petersburg. Two weeks later, they will run the non-points paying race at The Thermal Club on March 24. Texas was to have been run on April 7, but with it knocked out – we now have to wait four weeks after Thermal Club, until April 21 to see racing again. As many negative comments that the non-points paying event has generated, at least it’s something. Otherwise, we would be going six weeks between races. That’s too long, but again – I don’t blame IndyCar for this one.
Another negative is the coverage for NBC. Two seasons ago, fourteen of the seventeen races were carried over Big NBC. In 2023, that number dropped by one to thirteen. Next season, only nine races will be carried over the air on Big NBC. Six will be shifted over to USA Network, and TWO races will be shuttled off to Peacock exclusively – Toronto and Milwaukee Race One. I believe nine races still exceeds the contractual agreement for Big NBC. It certainly exceeds what ABC/ESPN did for the last ten years of their deal – seeing only five races per season on the big network. In addition to the nine races on Big NBC, the network will also carry the event at The Thermal Club, as well as parts of the two Qualifying days for the Indianapolis 500. Still, anytime you limit the amount of viewers that can access races – that’s a negative.
The sporadic schedule is another negative, in my opinion. Counting Indianapolis 500 Qualifying and The Thermal Club – there are nineteen event weekends on the schedule. Nine of them take place between March 10 and June 9 – a period of three months. Then the next five events take place over a period of only four weeks. After the three-week Olympic break, the remaining five races occur over another four-week stretch. There is a lot of waiting, then a flurry of activity, followed by more waiting, then more fast-paced activity. It’s hard to feel any rhythm with a schedule like this.
I realize there are two things at play that are causing this – the Olympics and the abrupt loss of Texas. Both of these things are out of IndyCar’s control. I understand it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I am hopeful that in future years we can get a more balanced schedule, with fewer breaks and a better flow. Fans and teams both would benefit from this. I also hope other venues can be pursued. More and more fans are clamoring for a race in Mexico. It would certainly fit the bill for a warm-weather venue in that spring gap. While may fans would be opposed, I would like to give Pocono another try – but it would need to be promoted a lot better than in the past. IndyCar needs exposure in the Northeast. I personally feel like Pocono has been given a bad rap by fans, due to a fluke accident and an over-zealous move by a rookie in a four-race span. But that’s another debate for another day.
Putting the schedule together each year is a thankless job, and it usually makes more fans mad than are pleased. It’s a job I would not want. I’m reminded of another meme from our good friend, the late Eric Schwarzkopf that he would always post at this time of year.
Overall, the 2024 IndyCar schedule is a mixed bag. But you know what? It could have been a lot worse. There are a lot of positives to it, as well as some negatives. It seems like we say that every year.
George Phillips
Oilpressure 
September 27, 2023 at 9:10 am
I know we would like to see bigger swings from the series, but retaining events is important too, and it wasn’t that long ago that Indycar was trying to replace multiple venues lost each season. Nevertheless, the eastern seaboard, northeast, and now Texas are major geographic holes in the schedule that would be good to address.
I do still have some hope on Texas returning in 2025 as Indycar was making a lot of efforts to make it work prior to the unpleasant surprise they got a few weeks back and the series officials have been playing nice and giving lip service to a potential return since the news. I’m almost certain Milwaukee became a double header as a result of the late-coming news from Texas, resulting in the Peacock-only Saturday broadcast as NBC’s networks were booked.
September 27, 2023 at 1:56 pm
Wonder if the seasoned drivers will miss Texas?
Particularly due to the past history with the “magic’ track coating in the line that INDY cars use which was detrimental for grip. passing, etc.
Yet it was applied to favor NASCAR and to the hazard of INDY car “racing.”
There must be many INDY Car drivers that are now smiling and will not miss Texas NASCAR track conditions.