IndyCar Series hits gas tonight at Texas
The stars of IndyCar were in Florida preparing to begin their 2020 season when the coronavirus pandemic slammed the brakes on those plans 48 hours before the green flag.
Almost three months later, the series is finally set to go racing.
The revised schedule will start tonight at Texas Motor Speedway in NBC’s first primetime IndyCar race. The openwheel series follows NASCAR, which heads into this weekend with its top-tier Cup Series having already completed nine points races in 2020, with five of those just since the May 17 return at Darlington Raceway.
Both series have had to draw up extensive safety plans. Both are racing without fans for now.
IndyCar teams based in Indianapolis were set to head to the airport before sunrise to begin health screenings required to board chartered flights scheduled to leave for Texas before 6 a.m. Everyone will be screened again before they enter the track in Fort Worth, where face masks will be required.
Drivers and teams outside of Indianapolis were to arrive Friday and be subject to the same screenings. Team rosters are limited to 20 competitors, and the garages will be divided — Chevrolet teams in one, Honda teams in the other.
It will be radically different from the last time everyone was together in March 2019 in St. Petersburg, Florida, soaking up the sun and enjoying the party atmosphere of the traditional season opener. An already lengthy offseason has now been stretched to more than eight months, and the first event of 2020 will happen at a high-speed oval, where drivers will get their first in-race test of a new windshield designed to protect the cockpit.
“I think everybody is nervous. If you’re not nervous, I’d be concerned about the head that you have on your shoulders,” veteran driver Graham Rahal said.
“You’re going to probably one of the most intense tracks of the year, and you’re going there without testing, you’re going there without much practice, you’re going there without knowing what these tires may bring for us this weekend. You’re going there without knowing what exactly the aeroscreen is going to do to us on a track like that.”
Unlike NASCAR, which has scrapped practice and qualifying for its rescheduled events, IndyCar will do both at Texas Motor Speedway this afternoon. 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 track.
Qualifying will be televised at 5 p.m. on NBC Sports Network, with the main event at 8 on NBC. NASCAR’s doubleheader today at Atlanta Motor Speedway also will be televised, with the 1 p.m. Truck Series race on FS1 and the 4:30 p.m. Xfinity Series race on Fox.
NBC will send its booth staff and two pit reporters to TMS, 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.
As for those IndyCar rookies, the rebranded Arrow McLaren SP team will debut with 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 past six winners at TMS are in the field dating to 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. TMS has never before hosted an IndyCar opener, with its race typically held well into the season and after the Indianapolis 500.
“Texas is a very difficult race track to race in general, whether you’ve been there 20 years or it’s the first time. It’s a daunting track to get right,” the Tennessee driver 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 racing icon 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 that 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.”