Milwaukee in, Texas out as IndyCar releases 2024 schedule

IndyCar’s next schedule features the highly anticipated return to the Milwaukee Mile and the loss of Texas Motor Speedway as part of a 17-race, 15-event calendar.

The addition of Milwaukee comes as the penultimate event of 2024, and with the absence of Texas, the one-mile Wisconsin oval will host a doubleheader to compensate. IndyCar last raced at the Mile in 2015 (main image).

NBC will air nine of the 17 races, with six featured on USA Network and two will stream exclusively on Peacock. The Thermal Club $1 Million Challenge and both days of Indianapolis 500 qualifying will also be aired on NBC.

The season starts on March 10 at its traditional opener on the streets of St. Petersburg and returns two weeks later for the first-time non-points IndyCar race at the Thermal Club in Thermal, California. Due to an inability to find a suitable date for Texas, IndyCar’s former long inactive stretch in March has been traded for April, where the March 24 Thermal race is followed nearly a month later with the next race at Long Beach on April 21.

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The action picks up with Barber the following weekend on April 28, and then it’s another break so teams can prepare for Indianapolis as the May 11 road course race at IMS is followed by Indy 500 qualifying the next weekend and the 108th running of the great American race on May 26.

IndyCar’s field heads north the next weekend to race at Detroit on June 2, and then it’s a short drive west to Road America, which has moved from being one week after the 24 Hours of Le Mans to one week prior on June 9.

The series picks up again on June 23 when WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca gets its new late-June slot after spending the last few seasons hosting the season finale. Following that another change is in order as Mid-Ohio, which has previously fallen on the 4th of July, runs a week later on July 7.

The Mid-Ohio event is the first of three consecutive events as the July 13-14 Iowa doubleheader, with the July 13 round set for a nighttime feature, and July 21 trip to Toronto complete the month before NBC’s focus on broadcasting the Summer Olympics creates a big hole in the schedule.

The series returns on August 17 for a Saturday night race at World Wide Technology Raceway, and then it’s straight to Portland for an Aug. 25 race and an immediate return to the Midwest for the Aug. 31-September 1 Milwaukee doubleheader.

Teams get one more break before the final event of 2024 on the reconfigured Nashville street course on Sept. 15.

“There is such a great tradition and history of IndyCar racing at the Milwaukee Mile, and we are excited to build on that legacy with a Labor Day-weekend NTT IndyCar Series doubleheader beginning in 2024,” said Roger Penske, chairman of Penske Corporation. “We appreciate all the loyal and passionate IndyCar fans in Milwaukee and across the state of Wisconsin, and thanks to our partnership with the Wisconsin State Fair Park, we can’t wait to return to the Mile next season.”

The oft-discussed post-season demonstration race in Argentina was not mentioned by the series in its calendar release.

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