Planning for multiple dipping over July 4th weekend at Indy
Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart might enter both IndyCar and NASCAR races at IMS.
Tony Stewart completed the illustrious “Memorial Day Double” 19 years ago, but pulling the strings to accomplish Doug Boles’ latest challenge might just bring him even more acclaim from his rabid Hoosier fan base.
IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced groundbreaking changes Thursday to their 2020 schedule, including sliding the 104th Indianapolis 500 from May 24 to Aug. 23, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Along with the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, the GMR Grand Prix – originally slated for May 9 to kick off the month – was given its own historical spot.
In partnership with NASCAR, the two series created the first doubleheader weekend with cars from both series competing on the same track.
For the third year, the BC39 USAC National Midget races will kick off the Brickyard 400 weekend, with events on the quarter-mile clay track inside Turn 3 of the 2.5-mile oval held Wednesday and Thursday. And now, IndyCar and Xfinity Series drivers will tear around the IMS road course for practice Friday before both qualify and race back-toback Saturday, July 4. On Sunday, the Cup Series Brickyard 400 will cap the weekend in the first year of its new home on the racing calendar.
As Boles, the IMS president, took stock of everything taking place on his grounds over the span of five days, one name came to mind. With both the IndyCar and NASCAR races in need of a spark, combining the two over one weekend sure might help. But adding in a famous Hoosier, already announced for the Xfinity Series race and who’s become a dirt track legend, recorded three top-10 finishes in the Indy 500 and twice won the Brickyard 400, might just capture big-time national attention over a multiday span.
“I just sent a text a little while ago to a
certain race car driver in Columbus, Ind. (Stewart’s hometown), that if there’s one driver on the face of the earth that could compete in all four of the races that will happen at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in one week, (he’s it),” Boles said on a conference call Thursday. “I got a text back from him with a ‘thumbs up.’ He said, ‘You get me the good rides, maybe I’ll consider it.’ ”
The feat would require several strings to be pulled, but it’s nowhere near impossible. Stewart is yet to race the BC39 since its start as part of the Brickyard weekend two years ago, but the 48-year-old continues to race on dirt tracks dozens of times a year while also co-owning the Stewart-Haas Racing NASCAR team. He last competed in an IndyCar race in the 2001 Indy 500 with Chip Ganassi Racing, where he took sixth after qualifying seventh. In three of his four 500s, he qualified in the top four.
Stewart has run in the Xfinity Series intermittently during his career, most recently in 2013 when he won the race run the week of the Daytona 500. Three years later, he retired from NASCAR Cup Series competition after an 18-year career.