NASCAR drivers eager to test their skills on Indianapolis' oval after 3 years on the road course

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Austin Cindric attended races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway most of his life, dreaming of the day he could compete on the historic 2.5-mile oval.

On Sunday, he'll finally get a chance to join his racing heroes.

Yes, NASCAR and race officials ended their three-year attempt to rev up fans with a 200-mile road-course event by returning to the track's more revered oval and original title, Brickyard 400, for the 30th anniversary of Cup racing in Indy.

"I do love this racetrack and I’ve watched way more laps on the oval than I’ve driven,” said Cindric, the son of Team Penske President Tim Cindric. “You know, I haven’t experienced the Brickyard 400 myself, so I’m certainly excited to see what it’s all like and at least drive the correct direction around the track.”

It won't be an entirely new experiences for Cindric.

He did start two Xfinity races on the oval before becoming a full-time Cup driver in 2022. But even this 25-year-old rising star recognizes that winning on the road course, as he did in the 2021 Xfinity race in Indy, wasn't the same.

Cindric is hardly an anomaly. He was one of 10 drivers turning their first official Cup-level laps in Friday's lone practice session. Qualifying is scheduled for Saturday afternoon with the race set for Sunday.

Like many drivers, though, Cindric and many other drivers thought the change was long overdue.

“Even when I won here in 2020, it was on the road course and to me, I still kissed the same bricks, I still climbed the same fence, I was still inside Indianapolis Motor Speedway and I was a winner here,” Chase Briscoe said. “But I mean, it certainly means a little bit more, when it’s on the oval. When you think about the history of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the history is on the oval. It’s not on the road course.”

Series and track officials have spent decades searching for ways to bring back the large crowd that welcomed the inaugural Brickyard race 1994 and really started waning after the 2008 race was marred by tire wear.

They changed the dates, moving it to September, even making it the final race before the playoff before settling on July. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, they added an IndyCars to the weekend schedule, creating a rare double feature of America's top two racing series in one place and they used the Xfinity race as a road-course test run.

One year later, all three series were on the road course, and the complaints never really dissipated. So the decision-makers heeded the calls and returned to the oval — minus the open-wheel cars — to the delight of many.

“I don’t think anyone considered the road course a crown jewel race, so it kind of returns back to that status,” said Brad Keselowski, whose 2018 race win makes him the most recent Indy oval winner in the field. “I think that’s huge for our sport and it means a lot to me as a driver and I’m assuming it does for the other drivers as well. So, a welcome return. For me, winning this race and having your name on that crown jewel list, it’s really special."

Whether racing on the oval helps ticket sales remains unclear though the brief practice session in these newer Cup cars had some drivers, such as Keselowski, contending they behaved more like IndyCars on the track.

Clearly, that won't be the only difference Sunday. Pit lane may be more crowded, strategies will change and even Michael McDowell acknowledged he would have a significantly better chance defending his 2023 race win — on the road course.

Still, most believe changing courses is the right call.

“I think it's a great opportunity for us to get back to that tradition,” Tyler Reddick said after posting the fastest lap in practice at 182.582 mph. “This is a really tricky race and there was an outcry for wanting to try something different. But I think it's just the nature of Indianapolis, it desires perfection. If you want to win the race, you can't have a mistake,”

Reddick sits third in the standings, 15 points behind Chase Elliott with five races left before the playoffs begin.

But to Cindric, who spent his childhood mingling with some of history's best racers and around one of the world's most famous tracks, nothing compares to what he'll experience for the first time this weekend.

“My earliest memories of racing are at this racetrack, watching cars go around this track more so than anywhere else — on both sides of my family,” he said. “So from that standpoint, when I think of racing, this is what I think of.”

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