Nationwide Series move to Brickyard a bad deal

Another short track bites the dust as the Nationwide Series will move its race to the Brickyard in 2012.

The Nationwide Series had run at the short track, originally known as Indianapolis Raceway Park, across town in Indianapolis since the series was created in 1982. Now, it might not return.

The Nationwide Series will run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 28, 2012, the day before the Brickyard 400.

What were NASCAR and everybody else involved thinking? Surely this deal was driven by the prospects of making more money. The purse will likely be larger for a race at the big track and the seating capacity is substantially larger, but this is a bad deal in every way other than money.

Since the Sprint Cup Series first came to Indianapolis in 1994, the Brickyard 400 has been one of those special races on the motorsports schedule. Any race at Indy is a big deal, but that’s also because only the best get to race there.

Having only the Sprint Cup cars compete once a year on the 2.5-mile speedway kept the Brickyard 400 as an exclusive event. Sure, it will be a special moment for whoever wins in the Nationwide Series at the track, but it waters down the weekend, especially since most of the regular contenders in the Nationwide Series are Cup drivers anyway.

Another negative is the fact that the Nationwide Series is kicking a great short track to the curb. That move will only perpetuate the bland reputation the series has as a knock-off version of the Sprint Cup Series. Many of the drivers are the same in both series, the cars look very similar and most of the tracks are the same.

The Nationwide Series had a cool deal at the short track. Indianapolis Raceway Park was one of the only remaining short tracks that still had a bit of the country fair feel to it. Plus, the racing was usually close and exciting. It was a unique place. The Nationwide race at the Brickyard will be little more than just another tandem race weekend, especially when the novelty wears off.

In some ways, this is just another case of NASCAR’s eternal longing to reach big markets. NASCAR got tracks in Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and Kansas City, and for years it wanted to put tracks up by Seattle and New York.

Thankfully we didn’t get another bland 1.5-mile track from those deals. At least this week’s race in Kentucky is a little closer to traditional NASCAR markets, even if they might not be as big. Saturday night’s race at Kentucky Motor Speedway is already sold out.

Now that the decision has been made to move the Nationwide race, it will be tough to bring the series back to the short track. No matter how boring the race is on the big track, there will always be a Nationwide race the day before the Sprint Cup race from here on out.

Even if the Nationwide Series would return, it would be on a different weekend and would lose the excitement of having racing throughout the weekend in the same city, but at completely different racetracks. That’s also part of what made the Indianapolis weekend special. Only a big-time racing city would have two races on the same weekend at different tracks.

So, savor the upcoming Indianapolis race weekend July 30-31, because it will likely be the last time it stands out as a weekend that is different than any other weekend.

The Indy race weekend will still important simply because it’s Indy, but it won’t be the same.