What would represent the proper IndyCar Sequence calendar? In the course of this three-week Olympics break, it appears like pretty much as good a time as any to consider it.
What we’ve already bought is a superb base to work from: IndyCar’s high-quality mix of ovals, pure terrain street programs and road tracks makes it stand out as the last word check for open-wheel racers in vehicles able to over 800 horsepower.
The good news is that the shift to the FOX TV network from NBC means there received’t be Olympics or Tour de France issues to fret the schedulers. However FOX’s football-heavy sports activities programming means the season may have onerous bookends from mid-February to September, which is ok.
The 2025 schedule is already set, so let’s look forward to 2026 for our fantasy schedule.
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The Tremendous Bowl is in early February, with NASCAR’s Daytona 500 the weekend after, so let’s shift up the season opener to an outdated IndyCar favourite, Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The benefit of that venue is that we will have midweek spring coaching on its street course, main into media content material day in a flowery South Seashore lodge, after which the season-opener on its 1.5-mile, variable-banking oval.
Miami Seashore ambiance: the Loews Lodge
Photograph by: Eric Gilbert
After a weekend off, we head throughout Alligator Alley to St Petersburg on the opposite coast of Florida, for the primary road race of the yr. Then we take a southwestern flip, taking in one other new occasion at Mexico Metropolis’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez to fulfill Pato O’Ward’s legion of followers. We will then pop again throughout the border for a return to Texas Motor Speedway, to make the most of an important sports activities market.
Whereas I used to be chatting to McLaren Racing’s CEO Zak Brown at Toronto, I requested him what we had been lacking when it comes to key markets, and certainly one of his concepts was this: “I feel we have to dialup being extra of a tech sport, in order that’s west coast, so I feel Sonoma in addition to Laguna Seca and Lengthy Seashore. I don’t suppose that’s an excessive amount of to ask.”
Colton Herta, Harding Racing Chevrolet, main a pack at Sonoma
Photograph by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
So, let’s add Sonoma to the schedule as the primary of a triple-header with Lengthy Seashore and Laguna. Add in some advertising round this ‘western swing’ and also you simply may get of us concerned about attending all three of those traditional tracks.
The mega Barber Motorsports Park retains its spring date, however right here’s one other suggestion of Brown’s that I’m blissful to incorporate on my roster: “I’d like to see us in Denver. I feel we have to get out of some of the extra rural markets, not all of them, to commerce into greater markets.”
Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing, racing in Denver
Photograph by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images
Denver’s streets aren’t any stranger to IndyCar, with CART racing there in 1990 and ’91, after which we loved a five-year stint between 2002-’06. Let’s carry it again simply forward of the jewel within the crown, the Indianapolis 500, and who cares concerning the race on Indy’s street course that dilutes the majesty of the best oval race on the planet? Denver could be rather more enjoyable.
After such a run of races – we’re already on the halfway level! – taking a toll on everybody concerned within the sport, I’d grant a weekend off after Indy, earlier than rolling by Detroit, St. Louis and Highway America.
After a summer time break, July would kick off with the implausible Iowa weekend (hopefully with higher racing due to a extra weathered monitor floor) after which let’s make a double date out of IndyCar’s go to to Canada, pairing the good Toronto road racing pageant with a spherical at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Sebastien Bourdais leads the Champ Automotive area in Montreal
Photograph by: Motorsport Images
I ran this one previous Will Power, and he replied: “I am at all times pushing for Montreal and we used to go to Edmonton too. They had been at all times nice, nice races for us. So, begin engaged on Montreal guys, like, get us to that monitor! That’s proper the place we should be.”
Then let’s get again to America’s heartlands and rekindle the spherical at Watkins Glen, in lovely upstate New York, to lend somewhat northeast taste that the schedule is in any other case missing. Then, after a spherical at Milwaukee’s historic oval, let’s carry again one other crowd favourite – which Brown is amped about being revived…
“I’d like to see one thing just like the Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland once more, however beneath lights this time,” he mentioned. “Are you able to think about that on a Saturday evening?
“The followers can see all the things, it’s a reasonably cheap construction to arrange, and I’d relatively see us there than at Mid-Ohio, with all due respect to the historical past we’ve had there.”
Race begin at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport
Photograph by: Steve Swope
Including an airfield runway format would simply be one other string to IndyCar’s bow, and I at all times keep in mind that FedEx airplane between the corners! The wide-open turns at all times invited some formidable lunges (who can overlook Jacques Villeneuve vs Robby Gordon?) and tremendous racing.
Then, for the season finale, hopefully by late 2026 we will reinstate Nashville’s road monitor format, together with stretches on its well-known Broadway strip. That might be an amazing solution to conclude the season and provides everybody the excuse to celebration afterwards.
Will Energy, Crew Penske Chevrolet, on the streets of Nashville
Photograph by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images
So there you could have my excellent calendar, a 20-round championship that includes seven street programs, six ovals, six road occasions and one airport venue – with a pleasant variation throughout the season. Proven the exit door to make manner for extra attention-grabbing and related venues are Thermal, Indy’s street course, Mid-Ohio and Portland.
Not solely, but additionally? How a few Winter World Tour…
With an low season that spans over 5 months, it leaves the door open for IndyCar to run some extra-curricular races. So why not take its present on a world tour?
An apparent place to begin could be Japan. Title sponsor NTT Knowledge is headquartered there, and engine provider Honda simply occurs to personal Motegi and Suzuka! Certainly all it might take could be a logistics accomplice, like DHL, to pony up for the freight prices, and our present is on the street.
Helio Castroneves, Crew Penske Dallara Honda, leads the Bridgestone Indy Japan 300 at Motegi
Photograph by: Sutton Pictures
However the place else? I requested Will Energy for his ideas on the subject and he replied: “We used to get a large crowd in Brazil. That was an incredible place for us to go. After we used to go to Australia, we used to go to Japan, like all these locations had been large occasions.
“I do not know the financials behind it, if that is the rationale we do not, or is it extra of a TV factor? However I feel they’re sort of that. I feel they’re at all times completely different choices.”
Having raced at an oval in Rio beforehand, IndyCar ran 4 races at a road monitor in Sao Paulo across the Anhembi Conference Heart between 2010-’13. Parts of the circuit are actually utilized by System E, and if it’s off the desk then there’s at all times the choice of racing at Interlagos.
Will Energy leads Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe at Surfers Paradise
Photograph by: Motorsport Images
However the monitor that will get an “Awww yeah!” response from Energy is point out of Surfers Paradise. Whereas the two.7-mile road monitor that IndyCar used from 1991 to 2008 has been neutered to 1.8 miles, it might nonetheless present an epic flyaway to crown a Winter World Tour champion.
Let’s hope, beneath the visionary legend that’s Roger Penske and his staff’s relationship with race promoters, IndyCar’s horizons might be broadened in years to come back.
