READY TO MAKE ITS RETURN
Unlike NASCAR, which has scrapped practice and qualifying for its rescheduled events, IndyCar will do both at Texas in the afternoon before the race that night. The field consists of 24 drivers, including three rookies making their IndyCar debut, for the 200-lap race on the high-banked, 1.5-mile oval.
The rebranded Arrow McLaren SP team will debut with rookie Oliver Askew, last year’s Indy Lights champion, and Pato O’Ward, who has returned to IndyCar after a brief stint last year racing in Europe. Alex Palou will debut for Dale Coyne Racing, which in the offseason fired Sebastien Bourdais and promoted Santino Ferrucci into its lead seat. Rinus VeeKay is the third rookie making his debut, alongside oval veteran Ed Carpenter, owner of Ed Carpenter Racing.
The last six winners at Texas are in the field dating to Ed Carpenter’s victory in 2014 through two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden’s trip to victory lane last year.
Newgarden isn’t sure veterans will have any sort of edge considering drivers have largely been sidelined since the Sept. 22 finale. Texas has never before opened an IndyCar season and instead is held well into the season and after the Indianapolis 500.
“Texas is a very difficult racetrack to race in general, whether you’ve been there 20 years or first time. It’s a daunting track to get right,” Newgarden said. “From the rookie side, it’s going to be extremely difficult. This whole year is going to be tough on rookies with limited track time. I think Texas will be one of the toughest places to go to right out of the gates.”
IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway are in their first year of new ownership under Roger Penske, who has worked with teams to get them guaranteed bonus money installment payments while business was closed. IndyCar now has a revised 14-race schedule. It includes three stops at Indianapolis, two on the road course and the rescheduled Indy 500 on Aug. 23.
“We’ve not heard a huge amount of issues yet,” IndyCar President
Jay Frye said. “We’re very conscious that the economics of the teams matter. It’s exciting that we’re on NBC on Saturday night, and we’re going to do everything we can to provide as many benefits as we can to make sure our partners are covered.
“We’ve not heard a lot of any huge stress on the teams from their partners, and one of the things we’ve talked to them about is what is the sweet spot for number of races?” Frye said. “How can we make sure that we’re accommodating as many of them as we can? We feel good about the 14 that we have.”
NBC will send its booth staff and two pit reporters to Texas, and executive producer Sam Flood said social distancing will be practiced between play-by-play announcer Leigh Diffey and analysts Townsend Bell and Paul Tracy. Fox Sports, conversely, has been calling its NASCAR events from a studio in North Carolina.
Flood also said the broadcast will be careful to recognize the current issues in the country, from protests over the death of George Floyd to the ongoing pandemic.
“I think it has to be acknowledged for sure because it’s impacting so many lives, and starting with COVID-19, which anyone in the world knows about right now because it has been top of mind for 80-something days,” Flood said. “And in terms of what’s going on across our country in terms of race protests and the rightful dialogue that’s coming from that, we will appropriately react to it and make sense of it.