INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN) – Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Roger Penske says the Indianapolis 500 will only take place with fans.
FOX59 confirmed a report by Robin Miller of RACER Magazine that Penske will only run this year’s Indy 500 with spectators, whether it goes on as scheduled August 23 or if it has to be pushed back to October.
“Trust me, we are going to run it (Indianapolis 500) with fans,” Penske told RACER. “We’re on for fans in August and planning on it and we feel good. It’s still almost three months from now and I think we’ll be okay. But we will run it only with fans.”
The IndyCar GP/NASCAR Xfinity doubleheader and NASCAR Cup Brickyard 400 July 4 weekend at IMS will run without fans.
“We had a plan to go forward with fans on Brickyard weekend, but it just didn’t make sense,” Penske told RACER. “We didn’t want to do anything to impair the Indy 500 and we would have had to be the exception but we decided we couldn’t go early.”
IMS will host a third IndyCar race this season, the Harvest GP on the road course October 3.