NASCAR conducting tire test on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
For those wanting to see the Cup Series back on the oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, NASCAR has gotten one step closer. Following the Verizon 200 road course race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, three drivers and teams stayed behind for a tire test.
NASCAR is always looking to improve the on-track product. The move to the road course was to make Indy more interesting. After the oval had grown stale with the previous generation of car, it made sense to try something new.
Now, with the Next Gen car’s exciting intermediate package, there is hope the Brickyard 400 will return in 2024. So, NASCAR is getting a tire test done to see just what this car does on the track. It will also help with next year’s tire package from Goodyear.
Those participating in the tire test today Monday, August 14 as well as Tuesday are Chase Briscoe, Alex Bowman, and Ty Gibbs. Briscoe is probably more than happy to turn oval laps at IMS. The Indiana native loves that track and had a top-10 finish on the road course on Sunday.
While media and fans weren’t originally allowed at the test, it appears some have gotten in to take a look at the action.
Of course, this wasn’t the only video out there. NASCAR and IMS had their own video showing the cars ripping past the grandstands and into Turn 1 on the classic oval.
If we got the kinda racing at IMS we saw at Kansas this season, you’d make a lot of folks happy. These cars were going to do a test without a splitter, but time restraints may stop that from happening.
So, what are you most excited about with the return of the oval?
NASCAR open to changes on the 2024 schedule
The 2024 schedule is likely to come out at the end of this month or toward the beginning of September. Rumors have gone around about racing at Montreal, doing the Chicago race again, going back to the Indy oval, how you replace Fontana, and more questions and destinations.
As of right now, NASCAR has been mostly hushed. However, Elton Sawyer, senior VP of Competition has admitted to “ongoing conversations.” At least when it relates to Indy.
“We just feel like 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 in the old configuration with the Next Gen car,” Stucker told SiriusXM, via NASCAR. “We haven’t run the Next Gen car on the oval, we’ve only run the road course.”
So, that is the reason for the test. There is enough momentum to make them think about it. NASCAR wants data for this car on the oval and it makes sense to run the test. If there is enough time, they will try to do the splitter and aero tests just as they did at Richmond earlier in the month.