The iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, known as The Brickyard and home of the annual Indianapolis 500, and the IndyCar racing series is being sold to Penske Corporation, ending an era of family ownership of IMS that dates back to 1945.
Penske and Hulman & Company, the selling party, confirmed the sale on Monday. Tony Hulman bought the speedway 74 years ago, and it has remained a family property since. Indianapolis has hosted just about every major asphalt racing series in the United States, including Formula 1, NASCAR, IndyCar and MotoGP.
Few details of the sale were included in the early reports, but both parties confirmed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the NTT IndyCar Series and IMS Productions will be sold to Penske subsidiaries. The Penske Corp. and Team Penske are owned by Roger Penske, a former race driver and well-known business leader.
While America’s open-wheel racing landscape has been marked by dramatic splits and reorganizations over its many decades, the now-reconsolidated IndyCar series has been healthier in recent years and has attracted attention from teams around the world.
McLaren, which has dipped its toe in the water for the series’ signature Indianapolis 500, confirmed in August that it would field a team starting in 2020.
Penske is a similarly long-standing fixture of American (and international) auto racing, and its ties to Indianapolis and American open-wheel racing are particularly strong. Team Penske has fielded more winning Indy 500 entries than any other team in the event’s 100-plus-year history. Penske Racing first entered the IndyCar series in 1968 and ran its first Indy 500 in 1969.
America’s open-wheel series split saw Penske come down on the CART side of the rift, and the team took a five-year hiatus from the Indy 500, returning in 2001. Since that return, Team Penske has taken eight victories, fielding the 2018 and 2019 winners, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, respectively.
This article was originally published by Motor Authority, an editorial partner of ClassicCars.com.
