NASCAR Cup Series teams have not yet taken on The Brickyard 400 in the Next Gen car, but Indianapolis Motor Speedway has already set the stage for the oval's return next season.
"We haven't announced it yet officially, but we'll be back again on the oval next year, which I'm excited about," Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles said during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Thursday morning.
Boles explained that the IMS team always knew that the 2.5-mile oval would return at some point after its final -- at the time -- race in 2020. They just didn't know when it would be. The goal at the time was to give the road course race a couple of years to see how it ultimately performed.
Xfinity teams competed on the road course four times between 2020-23 while Cup teams competed three times between 2021-23. NASCAR and IMS then pushed the road course to the side for 2024.
As Boles explained during his Thursday appearance, this season was a fitting time to bring back the oval. It is the 30th anniversary of the inaugural Brickyard 400, a race that Jeff Gordon won after leading 93 of the 160 laps.
The return of The Brickyard 400 this season and in 2025 does not mean that the road course will never return to the NASCAR schedule. It just won't have a spot in the immediate future.
"I do think you'll see some sort of rotation in time where we rotate between the two (courses)," Boles told "The Morning Drive" co-host Pete Pistone.
The idea of rotating the road course and oval is something Boles has discussed multiple times in recent years. An example is a January 2023 appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, one that took place long before NASCAR revealed The Brickyard 400 would return for 2024.
Boles said during this appearance that the oval would indeed return to the NASCAR schedule at some point. He didn't know at the time if it would be on a permanent or temporary basis.
Boles mentioned the possibility of rotating between the road course and the oval. He didn't know if it would be an every-other-year format or if they would switch between the two configurations every 10 years. These were conversations that would continue as IMS prepared to bring back the oval.