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Penske CEO: There will be a Brickyard 400 race

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — The Brickyard 400 is going to happen, says Mark Miles President and Chief Executive Officer of Penske Entertainment.

Miles told JMV on 107.5 The Fan he and new Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske have been working diligently to make sure there is racing at IMS come July. With the shakeup in scheduling because of the coronavirus pandemic, NASCAR and IndyCar will be sharing track time at IMS Fourth of July weekend.

“The plans we’re looking at giving us a lot of confidence that the state could be, the city could be in Stage Five by that weekend,” Miles said. “By the middle of June, we’re going to have to have to say ‘we’re going with fans, and here’s how we’re going to do it.’

Miles said they have not made a decision yet on whether or not fans will be allowed to attend both the Big Machine Vodka 400 and GMR Grand Prix the weekend of July 4.

“But we’re going that race either way,” Miles said confidently. “The Xfinity cars, the Cup cars, and the IndyCars are going to be on this track one way or another.”

Even though live racing returned this week with NASCAR completing two races at Darlington Raceway, it’s a piece of good news the racing community certainly needs. Especially with the news that IndyCar has had to cancel two races this week.

IndyCar confirmed Thursday both races scheduled for Richmond, June 27, and Toronto, July 12 have been canceled.

“It doesn’t look like there’s going to be another opportunity this year for Toronto,” said Miles. “It’s so hard to set up a street race in a city like Toronto. To guess there is another time in the future you could do it is probably a bridge too far.”

Miles is still confident the IndyCar season will be a success with fourteen races still on the docket. He said in light of the canceled race at Richmond they will not be doing a double-header on the road course at Road America in Wisconsin.

IndyCar’s Road America race was rescheduled to the weekend of July 11 and will no have a second race on July 12. It will also be IndyCar’s third double-header event of the season with double-headers already planned for Iowa Speedway in the weekend after Road America and at Laguna Seca in September.

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