This weekend, for the first time since 2020, the Brickyard 400 is back. NASCAR’s returning to one of the most famous tracks in motorsport: the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, home of the Indianapolis 500. But it may never be back to the way it was during its glory days, and much of that struggle can be traced back to one day: July 27, 2008.
NASCAR at Indy has the right ingredients. It’s got the cool name. The track's got history—people have been racing at Indy since 1909—and it's a spectacle, owning the title of world’s largest sports facility by capacity, with more than 250,000 permanent seats along its 2.5-mile rectangular oval. And, of course, it hosts one of racing’s most famous sporting events, the Indy 500 (which sold 345,000 race-day tickets this year alone). But the last time NASCAR showed up at the Brickyard, the stands had more empty seats than people. It wasn’t always that way.
