INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 30, 2020

Doug Boles

Joey Logano

Graham Rahal

Press Conference

DOUG BOLES: Thank you, everybody, for joining us this morning. Before we get started, I want to say a special thank you to the folks at NASCAR. Today is the day that NASCAR is announcing their 2021 Cup schedule, and we're excited to have the 11:00 hour to talk about the Cup race here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and how we fit in to the Cup Series.

I think for the 28th year, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is going to be part of the Cup Series, and we can't wait, and we're really excited about two things we're going to announce today: The date and the format.

As you all know, racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is special because of its history and its tradition. One of the things we've worked with NASCAR over the last few years to do is really make this a special event, and this year we got to do something really cool; we got to have the first time that you had INDYCAR and NASCAR on the same weekend at the same racetrack, and it was a fantastic opportunity for us. The bummer was we didn't get to have any fans.

So as we're thinking about 2021 and continuing that tradition of INDYCAR and NASCAR on the same weekend, we're going to do it again, but we're going to throw a little bit of a twist in there. We're actually going to do it completely on our 14-turn road course, so that means the IndyCars will be there and the Cup cars will be on the road course, as well. We are actually going to have the Cup cars and the INDYCARs, same weekend, same racetrack, same layout. So we're really looking forward to that. It's going to be August 14th and 15th, the stars of the NTT INDYCAR Series on the 14th and the stars of the Cup Series on the 15th.

One of the things I've been really impressed with in my 10 years here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is just the partnership that NASCAR has had with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and how they really truly want to help us put on events that are special for our fans, and I think this year is no exception, and we can't wait to do that.

Joining us today for this press conference we have Joey Logano, 429 starts in the Cup Series, somebody who is absolutely going to be a contender on the road course here. If you send him to Watkins Glen, he pretty much comes home with a victory. He's got three Xfinity victories there, he's got a victory in the Cup Series, so he's a very accomplished road racer.

Joey, you had an opportunity this year when you were at the Brickyard to watch the Xfinity cars on the road course. What's it going to be like to be running the road course in a Cup car next year at the speedway?

JOEY LOGANO: We all were glued to our TVs. Anytime there's a new racetrack like that for NASCAR and obviously driving for Team Penske and what they have put together was very interesting, and we all wanted to see what it was going to be, and boy, it did not disappoint. What an incredible finish with Chase Briscoe and AJ and Austin Cindric all battling it out to the end.

You've got tire wear, which I thought was very interesting. Our cars were slipping and sliding, which as a driver that's a lot of fun. You want to see tire wear. You want to see the penalty of running too hard, that strategy that comes into it, especially on road courses, what are tires worth, and it's challenging to get through the field. I think it's going to throw a lot of kind of loops to the race to kind of see how it goes.

But boy, it turned out to be a crazy race at the end. By the end, I said, that was great; I hope we get to do this. I want to get on that racetrack with our Cup cars and see what it's like with 40 of us crazy guys out there.

DOUG BOLES: You've got 25 wins so far in your career in Cup. What would it mean to pick up a win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time that Cup is on the road course?

JOEY LOGANO: It means everything. Indy is Indy, no matter you're on a road course, you're on the oval, it doesn't matter. If you're on a dirt track, I don't care, it's Indy. It's that big of a deal to win there. And it doesn't matter if you're in a Cup car, an INDYCAR or a tricycle, you want to win at that racetrack.

I feel like I'm excited to get out there. Obviously inaugural events are always extra special. If you can win the first Cup race on the road course that would mean a lot, obviously. Any win means a lot, but doing that would be something that you'd remember forever and it would be very special.

DOUG BOLES: You touched on something, and I've got a question for Graham, but you talk about Indy being Indy, and one of the cool things about the road course is you still start and finish on that Yard of Bricks that's so important, so at the end of the day some team is going to be kissing the Yard of Bricks at the end of that first inaugural Cup road race here at the speedway.

JOEY LOGANO: Absolutely. I'll bring my Chapstick. I'll be ready for it.

DOUG BOLES: Graham, you've become one of my favorite drivers in the series because of your appreciation for two things: The fan and our history of our sport, and particularly the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And you've been pretty good here on our road course ever since we started running IndyCars in 2014. You've got a couple of second-place finishes, you've got four other top 10 finishes. It is a place that you seem to do really well on. Talk a little bit about the importance of this road race at the speedway but the importance of really gathering the Cup Series drivers and the INDYCAR Series drivers together, same weekend, same format.

GRAHAM RAHAL: Well, I think it's a tremendous thing for everybody to race together. Obviously this year was a little -- we were on the same weekend but we never really saw each other, with everything COVID related, and still the distancing that we're going through and still are, frankly. But no, I think it's great for the speedway. It's great for NASCAR. It's great for INDYCAR. It's great for the fans, most importantly, for everybody to be there at one time and be able to enjoy it together.

I'm excited about it. I think it's a great opportunity for both sports to help lift each other, and clearly right now all tides rise together in motorsports in general can help push each other to the top. It's going to be great to see the Cup cars, as well. It's definitely a fast road course format, the layout, and I think to see them going into Turn 1 and Turn 7 and all those areas, it's going to be a test of the brakes, that's for sure.

It should be great. We're excited this weekend to kick off, again, with the Harvest tomorrow. So this is fresh on our minds and it's a great time to announce it.

DOUG BOLES: One of the cool things about you, and you alluded to it a little bit, the sport of racing, not just the sport of INDYCAR is pretty important to you. Obviously you have family that's in drag racing so you've really got an appreciation for that. But talk a little bit about how it seems like over the last few years, and maybe social media has been part of it, but INDYCAR drivers and the Cup Series drivers have really created friendships and are following each other's sports. I know that when we race on the same days, oftentimes I'll go in an INDYCAR paddock and the NASCAR race is on. Vice versa that you go in the NASCAR garages and an INDYCAR race is on. Talk a little bit about how that relationship has evolved over the few years.

GRAHAM RAHAL: Well, I think, like I said, at the core, we're all racers. I definitely think guys like Jimmie have helped close that gap because of Jimmie's love and interest in INDYCAR racing. Clearly he's coming to participate next year. But his love and interest in INDYCAR racing has closed that gap and kind of opened a door.

But the connections go back a long, long, long ways. Not a lot of people know this, but in January of 1989 when my dad opened his Honda dealership, the guy who gave him the opportunity and kind of helped him get on his feet was Rick Hendrick, so Mr. H and that whole group, we've been extremely close to them for a long time. I know that several other drivers have interest in coming over and participating, as well.

I think there's a lot of cross -- and actually to connect even more motorsports, I think IMSA and sports car racing, a lot of Cup drivers did Daytona with us, Jamie Mac did it with us. I think even Larson did it one year. Guys like that, we always kind of met and spent time and hung out and just created those friendships, and it's always great to see what they do, and I think vice versa.

In many ways the sports are apples and oranges, completely different, but in many ways, too, it's racing, and they are very similar and a lot of teams are in both sides.

As I said, there's no reason to work against each other. These sports can help lift motorsports together, and hopefully that can happen, and a weekend like this is a great opportunity to do so.

DOUG BOLES: Absolutely, I 100 percent agree. Joey, one of the things that I'd be interested to know from your take from a Cup Series driver side of things, Xfinity hasn't been announced yet, we don't know what the plan will be there, last year we had it on the road course. Is there an opportunity for drivers to run two races if it ends up being on the road course this year, and ultimately could you see in the future an opportunity where we found an INDYCAR driver or a Cup driver that said, you know what, I'm going to try and run three races in the same weekend on a racetrack? Talk about the physical challenges of running a road course in a Cup car or an Xfinity car.

JOEY LOGANO: Well, I hope so. I think anytime you announce a new racetrack, I think every race car driver is saying, how do I get more laps on this track, especially on a road course, because the more laps you get, the more prepared you're going to be for the event. Yes, my mind initially, as soon as I heard about this announcement was how do I get in an Xfinity car. I know Bud is on here. Bud, I want to drive the Xfinity car next year at the racetrack to try and get some experience and know what's coming your way.

That's why I used to run the road course at Watkins Glen, to try to get more laps. Now, an INDYCAR, that would be really cool. Graham said it: A racer is a racer. We all want to be in the car as much as possible. We kind of want to know each other's car feels like. It's funny, when I talk to the INDYCAR guys at Team Penske, they all want to know what a Cup car drives like. And all of us Cup guys are like, I want to know what all that grip feels like and how hard they can drive into the corner.

Completely different disciplines of racing, but boy, it would be neat to see some seat swap a little bit where you can put someone in an INDYCAR and switch a couple drivers out just to see how it goes. I think that would be very interesting for the fans. I would be in for it.

DOUG BOLES: The one thing I was looking forward to the most this year, and I'll ask you this question and let Graham comment on it, and unfortunately COVID didn't allow it to happen, but I was looking forward to a Cup grid where INDYCAR drivers were walking alongside checking out the Cup stars before they started running and an INDYCAR grid where you had the Cup drivers walking up and down the grid just to maybe play a little bit on what you just said. You're always interested in what the other folks do. So I have a feeling that you guys will probably be just as interested on that Saturday grid walking and checking it out as the INDYCAR drivers will be about walking and checking out the Cup cars just before the Cup green flag.

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, of course. I think there's always something to be learned from somebody, right. I watch other sports just to see how other athletes prepare. With INDYCAR being so similar to NASCAR, automotive racing, right, there's a lot of things, like I said, they do different to prepare, whether they're training off track, their mental preparation, the way they set up their cars and what's most important to them. That's always fun for me to talk to our INDYCAR guys about is their theories and stuff are so different in comparison to what our stock cars are.

It's fun to kind of hear that, and the way they drive it, it always blows my mind when they go to some of these short tracks and hold the thing wide open and I think about us lifting at the start-finish line and they're not lifting at all. I think, that's crazy! But it's just different types of racing. It's not that one car is easier to drive than the other, it's just different, and different challenges come along with that. That's why we always want to ride swap if we can and just see what that's like because talking about it is one thing but seeing it is another thing and feeling it.

Like you said, that part would be neat, but it would also be cool just to be there. I've actually never watched an INDYCAR race in person. I watch them on TV all the time, but I'm always racing on the weekends, so I never get to see those cars go by. The only time I've seen an INDYCAR go by was Josef Newgarden at the Roval I think it was two years ago now. And I knew that blew my mind, so I can only imagine all the cars out there at the same time.

DOUG BOLES: Graham, do you have any comments on just the whole idea of the physical challenges of running a road course, especially in a different type of car and on the same weekend?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Yeah, I mean, it's incredibly fit -- well, Indy, IMS on the road course is one of the most physical tracks we go to all year. With the double-header this weekend, I think everybody is drinking plenty of Pedialyte and drying to get their rest because it's going to be a brutal one this weekend. Yeah, and the heat inside the Cup cars, it's tremendous.

But as Joey said, I think it's always a cool opportunity to be able to see those guys up close and to see the way they go about their business. This year it would have been awesome to be able to have some guys do both. I had actually called Mr. Hendrick about trying to find a way to make it happen and do the Brickyard. It just didn't work out.

For me, I'm always intrigued with what they're doing. Having driven for Penske in the sports car stuff and just walked through the shop and seen the size of the NASCAR operation, it's absolutely unreal. It's unreal to see.

But we're racers at the core. Guys want to see each other, support each other. Jimmie will be on our grid next year, which is going to be, I'm sure, interesting for him on a weekend like that. But there will be a lot of intrigue, I think, back and forth. It'll be great.

And as I said before, the biggest win is the fans. People that want to come and see both and have really dreamt about that opportunity are going to have it. It should be a great weekend for everybody involved.

DOUG BOLES: I'll ask you this question first and then let Joey comment and then we'll take some questions from the media. One of the things I think I'm most excited about with Cup being on our road course is just how competitive the end of that Xfinity race was and how much Austin was leaning on Chase and AJ was in the mix and that group of guys, and they weren't afraid to put a fender on each other and the track is really wide and there's a lot of room for forgiveness, a lot of room to move folks out of the way. Not something you can do in an INDYCAR. Talk a little bit about how exciting that is for an INDYCAR driver to watch that when you know you can't do it in your car but what makes especially Cup and Xfinity on the road course exciting is how close the contact that they can have when they're running together.

GRAHAM RAHAL: Yeah, often I sit and watch and think to myself that the art of passing is a little bit different from one sport to the other.

You know, the Xfinity race this year was great. I thought the end of it -- I was actually surprised that they were -- not going to say they were patient with each other because they were banging like crazy, but I remember texting AJ afterward and I thought he was going to send Austin off into the weeds a few times and he was pretty gentle.

It was an exciting race. I thought they put on a good show.

Like I said, all you can say is to have the different varieties of racing in one weekend is a win for the speedway, it's a win for both series, it's a win for NBC, it's a win for all the fans that are watching. I mean, that's really what it is and what it comes down to.

We'll be excited for that next year. If I'm looking at the dates correct, it's, what, the week after Nashville, our street race in Nashville, too, so it'll be an exciting period of time for our sport to come from a street race in the heart of downtown Nashville, come back to Indy, come home and race with NASCAR. It'll be an awesome eight days for us.

DOUG BOLES: Joey, talk about how much fun it'll be using those fenders on those cars on our road course.

JOEY LOGANO: Why are you asking me that question? Come on.

Obviously, like Graham said, our style of racing is different, and yeah, there's going to be contact because there are parts of that racetrack that are -- you're fast, but there's also parts where it's very technical and slow and it's going to bring all the cars really close and bunched up. I like a Turn 1 when everyone is barreling off down in there and there's an opportunity to out-brake cars and there's a little bit of runoff there, too, so it's inviting to try to make that pass and go in there and get that spot because each spot means so much these days. Every point means something, every position can really affect your race even on lap 1 can affect where you finish.

I think everyone has that mentality now, which makes our racing so aggressive.

But I like the point that Graham brought up that the fans are the true winners of this whole thing because whether you're an INDYCAR fan or a NASCAR fan, us collaborating and -- rising tide raises all ships, that's kind of where this is at, where you can come and watch a super weekend of racing, and any type of style you want. If you didn't know you liked one, maybe you will by the end of it because you'll get to see something different, and that's fun, too. Who wants to see the same race over and over again? You have different cars, different things, and that's what keeps it entertaining for the fans.

DOUG BOLES: Absolutely. Before we open it up to questions, I want to thank both of you for taking the time this morning. The two things that do make the Indianapolis Motor Speedway special are our history and our fans, and this year we created some history but didn't get to have the fans. Next year we're going to create even more history and we get to have the fans, so that's going to be a lot of fun for all of us, and I know it's going to be fun for the NASCAR Cup drivers to get a chance to run our 14-turn road course. I know our fans are going to love the opportunity to come for an entire weekend of activity. It's going to be fantastic.

You know, this sort of started out as a brainstorm, and fortunately Roger Penske helped us get it over the finish line earlier this year. Thank you to Scott Borchetta of Big Machine label and Big Machine Vodka for really embracing this and saying let's try it with Xfinity, and he's really excited, as well, longtime partner of ours to be involved with us again as we go forward and we change things up with Cup on the road course next year at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 15th, and we're looking forward to having fans there.

With that we'll kick it off to get some media questions.

Q. That was really in depth on what's going to happen in August. Doug, if I could pivot quickly, we were all excited to see Jean Todt and Roger photographed together around the 500. Where do things stand with Formula 1 potentially making a return to Indianapolis in the near future?

DOUG BOLES: Well, thanks for the question. Jean Todt did get a chance to come to the Indy 500, really the first time he's really been able to do that because obviously FIA typically has an F1 race on our Indy 500 day. So the trip for him was really just more of an opportunity to see the Indianapolis 500 as president of the FIA. There really weren't any conversations with him about Formula 1.

The one thing I can tell you, we are a Grade 1 FIA racetrack. There's only two of them in the United States. Actually there are three of them; two of them are here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We have two layouts that are FIA Grade 1. So if there ever was an opportunity in the future to host F1, we could certainly do it here, but right now that Jean Todt visit was really just that, just a visit to see the Indy 500.

Q. Doug, obviously there seemed to be a mix of opinions from Cup drivers on whether to run the oval or the road course. I'm curious was this a difficult decision or was it pretty easy after what you saw in the Xfinity Series?

DOUG BOLES: Well, I certainly understand the mix of emotions as it relates to the oval versus the road course. I do think it was an easier decision when we saw how well the Xfinity cars raced on the road course, and I think the Cup cars will race really well there, as well.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the relationship with NASCAR has been fantastic, and this an a collaborative effort. We're trying to do what's right for the sport, what's best for the sport and the event. We want to make it entertaining for our fans. We want to encourage more fans to experience NASCAR, more fans to come experience NASCAR at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and we think this gives us a great opportunity to do that.

The good news for those drivers is yes, they'll be going the opposite direction but they will start and finish on those Yard of Bricks, and they're racing across the same frontstretch that we've raced here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since 1909.

So I hope they'll step back a little bit and realize that it is the same racetrack, just running in a different direction.

Q. For Joey, potentially double the number of road course races overall in Cup next year. How does that change the dynamic and/or your preparation?

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, we'd better start building some road course cars, eh? It's obviously changed the game. I think that's just an answer to the fans. We've got to Watkins Glen, the Roval was a hit, Sonoma is a big hit, the Daytona road course was great. It kind of is an answer to the fans as we start here at Indy and then others.

I think when you look at the fan polls after every single road course race, the majority of them love it. With our cars, our cars just work on them.

Yeah, the preparation has changed. I like that we're doing different things. I've always said that about NASCAR; one of my favorite parts is that we're running so many different types of racetracks, and obviously we're running a lot of different ones next year. I think that's something that's attractive to me as a race car driver is they're run on different types of racetracks, new racetracks, things that I never thought of in my career that I was going to be running on.

You know, the game is changing a little bit, and it always presents opportunity to figure it out before the next guy. The good news is at this point we've all kind of run some road courses here to where we're not completely clueless anymore and we're able to get our cars better and better, but that obviously will keep continuing to change as we go through the season next year and obviously into next gen.

Q. Doug, are you viewing this as a permanent move to the road course for the Cup cars? In other words, is this the end of the Brickyard 400, or could there conceivably be a return to the Brickyard 400 one day?

DOUG BOLES: You know, at this point I don't think we've really had a robust conversation about what the long, long-term future looks like. We certainly want to see what the fans think about it, how the cars race. I feel really excited about it. I think it's going to be a good long-term fit for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and for NASCAR. That doesn't necessarily mean that there might not be a time where maybe every once in a while a race is on the oval, but right now the focus is putting on a fantastic show next year on the road course, and we'll get the feedback from our fans, and like I said, we can't wait. I think the drivers are going to enjoy it and I certainly think our fans will enjoy it, so I think this is going to be a pretty good opportunity for us to race at the speedway long-term on the road course.

Q. Doug, let's just be honest; the racing, NASCAR racing at Indianapolis hasn't always been the best and the attendance has been declining for years. How much did that factor into this decision to move it from the oval to the road course?

DOUG BOLES: Yeah, thanks for the question. We've heard a lot about the performance on track, and I think if you step back away, we did have several years where the racing was pretty difficult at the speedway, but I'd argue the last three years, the racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the oval in the Cup Series has been pretty spectacular, even this year, lots of battles at the front. The restarts are unbelievable here. So the racing has gotten a bad rap, but when you really look at it, I think it's been a lot better.

In terms of attendance, we've struggled to find a date where we could settle and make our home for a period of time, and we are a venue that has 232,000 permanent seats, so even when you take Lucas Oil Field, the 65,000 plus that are in there and you put it across those 232,000 seats, it does look like a small crowd, but at the end of the day, it's still the second largest attended sporting event in the state of Indiana every year, and we feel like the road course will keep us in that ballpark.

We're doing the best we can to continue to be successful and change it up a little bit to hopefully attract more fans to come back so that we can begin to grow it in the other direction.

Q. Doug, is the August date the one you wanted? I assume that while you kind of had the holiday weekend that maybe August was preferable.

DOUG BOLES: So transparently, when we talked to NASCAR last year about the date move, we were happy with the July 4th date because we thought we could make some momentum around that, but as we were talking it through, our preference would have been a latter-half-of-August date, it just wasn't available last year, so we thought we'd take a shot at running a holiday weekend. It fit with Memorial Day weekend so we could take care of the two big summer weekends here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

And this year an opportunity came to move to August, and NASCAR asked us if we would be interested. They would have been happy, I think, to have left us on July 4th, but together we believed the right spot for us here in central Indiana and certainly the Midwest we think is that August 14-15 weekend. We're really pleased to be in that window.

Q. Is that because you want separation from the 500 and prior to the Colts?

DOUG BOLES: I was going to say, it's two things, and you touched on the second one. It is separation from the Indianapolis 500 so having five weeks between the Indy 500 and the Brickyard was definitely a challenge for our staff, for the facility, but certainly for our customers probably first and foremost.

And then the September date, while it got you in a little bit cooler weather, although we'll remember one as a lot of rain and the other was extremely hot anyway, it is smack-dab in the middle of NFL season and we could go head-to-head with the Colts. So that last half of August really gives us the benefit of some -- a little bit of cooling on the weather side and certainly keeps us out of the NFL window.

The other thing it does, school has started back in Indiana again by then so people are back home, not vacationing, so we think it fits really well for us.

Q. Doug and Joey, obviously a lot of changes the last couple years in terms of scheduling and certainly the changes at Indianapolis with how to schedule things. Can you put into perspective what this period is like, and is there still more change to come or is this now starting to after these big changes the last couple years maybe the start of settling of things?

DOUG BOLES: So I'll start and I'll let Joey finish it. What I encouraged about change is that it really says that NASCAR and INDYCAR frankly are listening to their fans and trying to put together the schedule that makes the most sense for our fans and offers our fans across the board a lot of diversity and a lot of entertainment. So I think while I hope that we get to a point where we've found that schedule so there is some long-term date equity for the promoters, at the end of the day it really is a response from the organizations who are putting on the best racing in the world to say, hey, we're listening to our fans and we're trying to give you a better product. I hope our fans view it that way. It's a way that NASCAR said we're listening and INDYCAR said we're listening and we're going to try and give the fans the product they want.

JOEY LOGANO: Yeah, ditto. Having an open mind is key. Change is always good in my opinion. When you make the right decision off of the data that you're able to receive. And when I look at the amount of information that we're able to get from our fans, that's what this is about. It's about putting on the race that the fans want to see, and so obviously change is going to happen any time you open it up for that form. I'm okay with that. That's what makes our world turn is our race fans. And so we need to give them what they want. If they want more road courses, there you go. You want more short tracks, there you go. We need to think that way.

As a race car driver, as a racer, I'm fine with that. That's what built our amazing sport that we have today is from changing and moving along, and that's how our world goes, right. Everybody, right, if we sat still, we're going to get passed. It's just like that in our race teams. Because we've found something that works one year doesn't mean it works the next year. It's the same even for these racetracks and for NASCAR and for INDYCAR; all of us need to be willing to have an open mind and evolve with the times.

Q. Doug, as a racetrack operator promoter, the role has always been the same, to reach out to the fans, but I'm curious in the last couple years how nimble, how dynamic things have had to change even for a person like you in the race promoter's role?

DOUG BOLES: Yeah, definitely, we are -- and Joey touched on it. We are in sort of this ever-changing world, and certainly as promoters we are, too. We're trying to add value for our customers. We know we're competing against a lot of things, first and foremost, starting with family commitments with kids and the things that happen there, and then you spread that out to hobbies and other sports. So it's definitely a competitive environment.

And for us, and the reason I'm really excited about this weekend, I think the value for the customer who says, you know what, I'm going to come to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 14th and 15th because I'm going to get to see Cup on the road course and I'm going to see INDYCAR on a road course, there's an awful lot of value in adding those two brands together at our one big brand, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and that does mean you have to be nimble, you have to be prepared to adjust, make adjustments and give certain things up in order to get other things.

Certainly 2020 has been that way as we've tried to get racing in, but even before that as we've been trying to put a product together that brings value to our fans. We've had to make some changes, and we've had to be able to be comfortable making a change on the fly and being a little bit nimble.

THE MODERATOR: Doug, I believe that's all the questions we have today, so if you want to offer some closing comments.

DOUG BOLES: Well, thanks, everybody. We're really excited to be part of this announcement today. I can't wait to host fans. Part of what gets me up every day is the opportunity to see the smiling faces of folks when they come through the gates of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, whether it's for an INDYCAR race or for a NASCAR race. Those two events and watching our people just enjoy being at the speedway, they understand the history, they understand what's going on, but to watch the superstars of the NASCAR series and the INDYCAR Series doing things that us normal folks can't get to do, and next year we'll really see it on the Cup side because those cars are going to be sideways, they're going to be bumping and banging. It is going to be spectacular to watch here at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Again, thank you so much to NASCAR for really working with us to put together what I think is going to be an unbelievable bill with the INDYCAR and NASCAR guys together at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Can't wait to see the rest of the NASCAR racetrack announcements today and I'll be tuning in to hear some of the really cool additions that are coming up with respect to the schedule, and also can't wait to see the rest of the championship series and the playoffs in NASCAR and the last three races of the NTT INDYCAR Series beginning this weekend with Graham Rahal and his counterparts running a Friday and Saturday night double-header. Thanks to everyone for joining. We're looking forward to seeing you here at the track soon.