Lucas OIl Raceway

Basic Information:

Capacity: 30,000
Location: Brownsburg, Indiana
Owner: National Hot Rod Association
Opened: 1960
Former names: Indianapolis Raceway Park (1960-2005); O'Reilly Raceway Park (2006-2010) 


Major events/Series:
 
ARCA 200
U.S. F2000 National Championship
Pro Mazda Championship
NHRA U.S. Nationals

Former Series:
Hoosier Grand Prix (1961-1973) (USAC/ IMSA GT)
NASCAR Xfinity Series (1982-2011)
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (1995-2011)




About:
Track type: Paved Short Track
Surface: asphalt
Length: .686 Miles
Turns: 4
Maximum banking: 12 degrees
Race lap record: 0:19.581 (Mark Smith, Ralt of America, 1989, Formula Super Vee)


15 businessmen led by Tom Binford, Frank Dickie, Rodger Ward, and Howard Fieber each invested $5,000 to fund what would become IRP. It was originally intended to only be a 2.5 Mile, 15 turn road course, but with help from the NHRA, a dragstrip was incorporated into the frontstretch of the road course. One year later, the .686 mile short track was built. Each year, since 1961 on Labor Day weekend, the NHRA hosts the U.S. Nationals. 

USAC Silver Crown, Sprint Car and Midget Car races are held on the oval, along with other events suited to a shorter track. Raceway Park also traditionally stages an extensive program on the Saturday nights of major races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend USAC Midget race called the "Night before the 500". The event is held the night before the Indianapolis 500 event at IMS, serving as something of an unofficial preliminary event to the far more famous one.

The 2.5-mile (4.0 km), 15-turn road course, was used by the Indianapolis area Sports Car Club of America road racing events. The initial Indianapolis Raceway Park road race was an SCCA event held in 1961. In 1965, rookie driver Mario Andretti won his first Indy car race on the road course, in an event which was historic in that it was the first time in modern history that American Indy cars raced on a road circuit. For the next six years, the road course hosted the Hoosier Grand Prix, a round of the USAC National Championship Series, the same series that included the Indianapolis 500, as well as the USAC Stock Car series. Notably, in the 1969 movie Winning, Paul Newman's character, Frank Capua, competes in a USAC Stock Car event on the road course.

The road course section of the track has not been used since 2007, when the pit lane opening had to be closed up with a concrete wall. There was no where else to put a new pit road for the road course, so no more competitive races were held on the road course configuration. 

Busch Series races were held on the track from 1982 to 2011, and Camping World Truck Races were held from 1995 to 2011. The Busch Series left to host races at the nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the Trucks leaving as well, eventually being replaced with a midweek race at Eldora Raceway. 

It was announced in August 2018 the track would undergo a $10 million dollar plus renovation. Phase 1 will take about 2 years, and involves replacing the Park Tower used for the dragstrip. A new tower would feature hospitality rooms, race control, a media center and classrooms where NHRA can train staff from any of the 120 tracks under its banner. Phase Two involves the oval. The track currently only hosts 10 races at the oval each year, and track General Manager Kasey Coher wants that number to increase to 30. The oval would have a new racing surface, improved fencing, lighting, and seating. Phase 3 of the renovation involves remaking the whole road course. The general manager want the road course to be seperated from the dragstrip, so in theory, all 3 tracks could be used at the same time. 

Links:
www.racing-reference.info/tracks/Lucas_Oil_Raceway