Oilpressure

Last week, the NASCAR schedule for 2024 was announced. After many months of being teased about many changes coming to the new schedule; it seemed fairly ho-hum to me. Two items caught my eye, however. One was no surprise to anyone that NASCAR was returning to the oval at IMS. That needed to happen. The Cup cars just didn’t look right on the road course that was originally built for F1 cars – not lumbering stock cars.

The other item I was not so positive about. NASCAR announced a three-day weekend at Iowa Speedway for June 14-16 – just a little over a month before IndyCar will have their big double-header weekend, complete with A-List concerts.

NASCAR owns Iowa Speedway and have for about the last decade or so, so it is certainly their right to race on it whenever they want to. But there is a historical pattern over the past quarter-century that concerns me. If IndyCar is racing at a track and their event is successful; NASCAR migrates to that track and relegates IndyCar to the status of the proverbial red-headed step-child. My apologies to any step-children out there, who happen to have red hair.

You can go all the way back to Ontario Motor Speedway. IndyCar (USAC) started racing at the clone of IMS in 1970. Sure enough, NASCAR followed the following year. Going back even further; Phoenix opened in 1964 and immediately hosted Indy cars. It wasn’t until 1988 that NASCAR decided to infiltrate the one-mile oval in the desert. The track was purchased by ISC in 1997, and rolled into the NASCAR portfolio, with all of the other ISC tracks in 2019. Guess who still races there, and who doesn’t – NASCAR does and IndyCar does not.

Fontana, Michigan, Pocono, Kentucky, Texas, Homestead – the list goes on and on. I’m still concerned about NASCAR Cup now racing at Gateway.

Now NASCAR has taken note of what Penske Entertainment and Hy-Vee have been able to do when they rented the dormant track in Newton, Iowa that NASCAR seemed to be content to let rot. The success of the IndyCar event caught the eye of NASCAR brass. With their brilliant decision to dismantle Fontana into whatever they plan to do with it – NASCAR had a date to fill, so they decided to run the track they own at Iowa. Not only that, but they plan to run it as a night race – on Sunday night. Unless there is a holiday on Monday, most night races are run on Saturday night – but they are going to run at night, just a little more than a month before IndyCar runs a night race on Saturday night.

I made a snarky comment on someone else’s post on the site formerly known as Twitter, about this dilemma early last week. Of course, someone had to get on there and ask me [paraphrasing] “You’re cursing them for racing at their own track?” I hate it when someone counters me with facts and logic.

The fact is that this is NASCAR’s track and they can do whatever they want with it. They can let the current IndyCar contract expire and never let them run there again. Some say that would be stupid, because it behooves NASCAR to utilize their properties and make sure all events at their facilities are a success. I’m not so sure.

It also behooves NASCAR for IndyCar to never be successful. They realize IndyCar has better racing, faster racing and better looking cars. I remember as a kid, I was attracted to IndyCar and F1 because their cars looked like my idea of a race car. It perplexed me how anyone could be interested in caveman technology with cars that looked similar to what my grandparents drove.

NASCAR is more popular and has a much bigger fan base, but in a side-by-side eye test – IndyCar wins every time, at least in my opinion. It never helps NASCAR if their fans dabble in both series, and the fans like IndyCar better. That’s why I feel like NASCAR would probably squash IndyCar every chance they get.

This is why I’m concerned about NASCAR Cup racing at Iowa. Just because it is a new NASCAR event – it will be successful, for the first few years anyway. By the time it drops off in popularity, they may have killed the IndyCar event.

I’m also concerned about NASCAR poaching a major IndyCar partner – Hy-Vee, who is a main component of the Iowa IndyCar event. Hy-Vee is in major expansion mode. They are currently building stores in Tennessee, one of which about a mile from our office in Murfreesboro. You can bet that NASCAR is already working on Hy-Vee, telling them that they will get much more exposure through NASCAR Cup, than they will with IndyCar.

On Trackside last week, even they had to be realistic about what this means for the Iowa IndyCar race. If anyone can put a positive spin on things, it’s Curt Cavin and Kevin Lee on Trackside. They tried, but even they had to concede that this may not be good for IndyCar’s future at Iowa.

My wife, Susan, always speaks of her nemesis in high school (who will go nameless); who never showed interest in a boy unless Susan was dating him. Practically every guy Susan dated in high school, her “frienemy” would steal him away. It’s a good thing her friend did not go to Tennessee, otherwise I might be married to her instead of Susan.

NASCAR seems to be much the same way with IndyCar. As mentioned earlier, there is a long history of IndyCar having success at a track; only to see NASCAR swoop in and dazzle the track owners and convince them they no longer needed IndyCar. NASCAR can make all of their dreams come true. IndyCar is no longer attractive to the track and they go all in with NASCAR. Sometimes it woks out; sometimes it doesn’t.

NASCAR doesn’t need to do much flirting with Iowa Speedway, since they already own the track. But if they sense that Iowans prefer IndyCar to NASCAR, all they have to do is pull the plug on the IndyCar event and have Hy-Vee all to themselves. Don think it can’t happen. It can.

George Phillips

Please Note: I have something going on over the next couple of days that will most likely keep me from writing. Therefore, there will be no post here on Wed Oct 11. I will return here on Friday Oct 13. Please check back then – GP

This entry was posted on October 9, 2023 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.