'We would all rather win on the oval': NASCAR drivers support return to IMS oval

INDIANAPOLIS — Stewart-Haas Racing's Chase Briscoe would happily welcome a return to the oval in NASCAR’s Cup Series' race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“I always tell everybody that, for me, if you’re racing on the oval or the road course, the dirt track, or even the parking lot, it’s special to get to race here,” Briscoe said. “But I think it’s no secret that the prestige, the history that the oval holds is definitely above the other disciplines that you could race here.”

Of course, as a Mitchell, Indiana, native, Briscoe is slightly biased. But he’s not alone in NASCAR drivers wanting to run the oval instead of the road course.

“If I’m being selfish, I think myself and many of the drivers and crews and everything else would rather be coming here and racing around the oval, with the prestige and history of what the oval is,” Richard Childress Racing driver Kyle Busch, who was a back-to-back Brickyard 400 winner in 2015-16, said. “Even though we’re at Indy, it doesn’t really feel like the same thing, going the wrong way.”

Many drivers consider the Brickyard 400, which ran on the IMS oval annually from 1994-2020, to be a “crown jewel” event of the NASCAR Cup Series.

NASCAR, however, took the oval race off the schedule starting in the 2021 season, citing declining attendance as well as tire problems on the cars. The Brickyard 400 used to sell out the 250,000-seat IMS in its early years, but attendance was dwindling every year since 2008 and had just 35,000 attendees in 2017.

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Now, NASCAR and IndyCar host a doubleheader on the IMS road course. But that may be going away, as well, with the potential return of the Brickyard 400 on the oval. NASCAR announced in July that it will be holding a two-day tire test on the IMS oval on the Monday and Tuesday following the Verizon 200.

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More: NASCAR to hold two-day tire test at IMS to evaluate future oval return

23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, who starts second at the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard on Sunday, said he usually prefers and would never complain about running a road course — but the Brickyard oval is something a lot of fans are hoping will return.

“I think it’s just seeing how the test goes,” Reddick said. “A lot of folks at NASCAR, honestly, and I enjoy being on the oval, but they need it to be a good race, we need to be able to race each other. … If we really can’t race each other well and pass, I don’t know if we really should run the oval. We’ll see shortly, but if it works out, we could certainly run both.”

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NASCAR’s old stock cars infamously had issues on the IMS oval, as the high speeds deflated, burst, or disintegrated the tires, leading to frequent caution periods. But Briscoe, who will be one of three drivers running the test on Monday and Tuesday, is confident that the Next Gen cars and new Goodyear tires that NASCAR now uses will fare better on the oval.

“It’s a crown jewel. There’s no other way to say it,” Briscoe said. “It’s the Daytona 500, and then the Brickyard 400 in terms of, from a driver’s standpoint, what every driver wants to win. I grew up coming to Brickyard 400s, so coming back would be super special and I’m just excited to see what this test holds.

IMS owner Roger Penske said NASCAR could return to the oval as soon as 2024, according to a July IndyStar article, but now, it depends on the tire test.

If the test goes well, IMS President Doug Boles also suggested that NASCAR could switch between the road course and oval on a yearly basis.

“The question is, do we go back to the oval at some point in time? Do we rotate between the oval and the road course?” Boles told WIBC on Friday. “... We’ll make a decision later this summer on what 2024 looks like, whether we keep this weekend format or we move back to the oval. Stock cars have not been on the oval since 2020, so the biggest thing they’re looking for is if the oval surface has changed enough that tires need to be rethought.”

Although the four-turn oval is less exciting than a 14-turn road course at IMS, drivers are still hoping to return to the Brickyard 400 because of the sheer prestige and history of the oval.

If the oval does indeed return to Brickyard weekend in 2024, Kyle Larson will be racing the IMS oval twice in the season. Larson, who races in the NASCAR Cup Series with Hendrick Motorsports, will make his IndyCar debut at the Indy 500 with Arrow McLaren in 2024.

“I think there’s no denying that the oval is going to be a much more boring race, probably,” Larson said. “I think just the prestige of the oval — we would all rather win on the oval than the road course, I think. When you think of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, you don’t think of the road course, so the Brickyard 400 is a crown jewel event that we lost. So if we can get it back on the oval, it would be great for our sport.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: NASCAR drivers support potential return to IMS oval at the Brickyard