It was bump day for the Indy 500.
The Indianapolis 500 is now a summer event. The Monster Mile could be set for a monster-sized NASCAR weekend spectacle of racing. And a supersized shakeup of the schedule looms whenever NASCAR and IndyCar resume in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Indianapolis 500 was postponed Thursday until Aug. 23 and won’t run on Memorial Day weekend for the first time since 1945. The Indy 500 was positioned as the middle race of a Triple Crown of racing on Memorial Day that kicked off the biggest day of motorsports with Formula One’s Grand Prix of Monaco and ended with NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600. The race now falls outside of May for the first time in its 104-year history.
“With a number of postponed sporting events being rescheduled in the summer and early fall, it’s frankly very difficult to find three consecutive weekends as we traditionally have in May,” Penske Entertainment Corp. President and CEO Mark Miles said.
