IndyCar supporting NASCAR: a new reality that's not so bad

Coming off a weekend where theIndyCar and NASCAR Having shared the same track, an oval no less, we have the right to wonder if IndyCar hasn't finally found the best way to return to ovals that are often sparsely attended. While Indianapolis attracts over 300,000 people each year to one of the world's greatest motorsport events, and Gateway consistently fills its grandstands, it can't be said that other oval tracks have drawn large crowds in recent years.

This is also one of the reasons for the lack of ovals in recent seasons, whereas they made up 100% of the calendar in the early 2000s, and about half in the early 2010s. Now back to a perfect 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 balance between ovals, road courses, and street circuits, collaborating with NASCAR on certain events may seem to be a reduction of IndyCar's role in American motorsport, when in fact this type of weekend is only a reflection of a reality that the Indianapolis bigwigs have too often tried to hide from themselves.

While stock car racing began to gain significant popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the split of IndyCar into two separate series in 1996 accelerated the paradigm shift. NASCAR became the undisputed number one, while IndyCar's popularity declined dramatically. Not even the 2008 reunification could reverse the momentum largely in favor of the "southern sport," as it was previously perceived.

For a long time, IndyCar tried to stay afloat, benefiting from the Indianapolis 500, which remains a major event in the American sports year. In recent years, the idea of ​​collaborating with a rival championship was difficult to envision, but last weekend's Phoenix merger couldn't have gone better for both championships, especially IndyCar.

A beneficial humility

While on paper, taking to the track at 8 a.m. on a Friday and running a race at noon on a Saturday might not seem like a major scheduling victory, IndyCar's acceptance of its less dominant role in the American landscape has paradoxically allowed it to gain more prominence than ever before. While ovals are usually deserted during races... carThis is particularly true because IndyCar has few support series capable of running alongside it on all of these tracks. Indy NXT can serve as a support race on some ovals, but otherwise, fans are generally starved of trackside activity when IndyCar is racing.

As the third tier of the weekend, behind the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, IndyCar didn't need to invest heavily in marketing to attract fans, most of whom would have already made the trip on Saturday for the Cup Series practice and qualifying, and the second-tier race. The open-wheel championship was therefore a welcome addition, and Saturday's race was held in front of a fairly full grandstand, much larger than for IndyCar's previous visits to Phoenix from 2016 to 2018.

The collaboration, rather than competition, with NASCAR also highlighted the strengths of open-wheel racing compared to stock cars. With significantly higher speeds, especially in the corners, and a fierce battle from start to finish, IndyCar emerged as a superior "product" to NASCAR, allowing it to showcase itself directly to thousands of fans who would never have watched a race under normal circumstances. FOX, an IndyCar shareholder and the network broadcasting both championships this weekend, played a major role in this convergence of two worlds that coexisted but ultimately had very little interaction. The timing, one week before a major event in Arlington, Texas, was also ideal for attracting new fans to watch Sunday's race.

While NASCAR has been losing momentum for several years, the return of the Chase and the Charlotte Motor Speedway at the end of the season are signs pointing to a potential resurgence. IndyCar would be wise to embrace this resurgence, rather than trying to counter it with tried-and-tested methods that have never worked. For NASCAR, fresh from a tumultuous antitrust lawsuit, sharing the track with the other major American series is also a great way to redeem itself. Faced with the threat posed by the Formula 1Now broadcast on Apple TV, the American leagues may be realizing that it's time to unite, rather than fight amongst themselves. Phoenix was an experiment in this regard, but one that is very likely to be repeated, given the success of the entire weekend in the desert.

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