Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park

Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (abbreviated IRP; official name from 2006 to 2011: O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis; former official name: Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis) from 2011-2021, nicknamed Little Indianapolis or Little Indy, is a auto racing facility located in the town of Clermont, Indiana, It was inaugurated in 1960 and has belonged to the National Hot Rod Association since 1979.

Several of the races hosted on IRP's 0.686 mi paved oval serve as unofficial openers for races held at nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). The Saturday before the Indianapolis 500, the United States Auto Club contests its championship races in an event called Night Before the 500 ("Night Before the 500"). The USAC did the same thing when Formula One contested the United States Grand Prix at IMS, under the title Night Before F1, also a 2.5 mi road course (which has fallen into disrepair and is no longer used), and a 4,400 ft drag strip which is among the premier drag racing venues in the world. The complex receives about 500,000 visitors annually.

From the NASCAR Cup Series holding the Brickyard 400 in 1994 through 2011, the NASCAR Nationwide Series and later the NASCAR Truck Series contested 200-lap races in IRP the previous days under the name Night Before the 400.

Since 1961, the NHRA U.S. Nationals - the most important drag racing competition in the specialty - takes place at the IRP racing track, which is 0.833 mi long.

IRP also has a mixed circuit of about 4,000 meters in length, which is now used by the Sports Cub of America. In the 1960s and 1970s, the USAC National Championship raced at that track.

History
In 1958, 15 Indianapolis-area businessmen and racing professionals led by Tom Binford, Frank Dickie,, and Howard Fieber invested $5,000 each to fund the development of a 267 acre farm tract into a recreational sporting complex that would focus on auto racing. The original intention was to create a 15-turn, 2.5 mi road course, but as an insurance measure against economic problems, the investment group decided to incorporate a quarter-mile drag strip into the long straightaway of the 2.5 mi road course design. Constructed with assistance from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), the drag strip was the first to be completed, with the facility's first event held on the strip in the fall of 1960. The facility was called Indianapolis Raceway Park. A year later, a 0.686 mi paved oval was completed to finish off the track capabilities of the complex. The oval track was used as-is until an overall track renovation was completed in 1988 in order to increase speed on the track.

The premier feature of Lucas Oil Raceway is a 4,400 ft long drag strip. The single NHRA event held at the facility is the oldest and most prestigious of the series. The NHRA U.S. Nationals, held every year during the weekend, is the only event on the NHRA schedule with final eliminations scheduled on a Monday. An all-star style race, called the Traxxas Nitro Shootout, is held for the two nitro divisions (Top Fuel on Saturday and Funny Car on Sunday). The winners in each division win $100,000 US, while the race itself has the largest purse of any NHRA sanctioned event at over $250,000 US. The drag strip has held the event every year since 1961, when the race was moved from Detroit.

Sprint and midget races are held on the oval, along with other events suited to a shorter track. Raceway Park traditionally stages an extensive program on the Saturday nights of major races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. On, the venue hosts a USAC Silver Crown, Sprint Car and Midget Car event, serving as something of an unofficial preliminary event to the Indianapolis 500. It was previously held on Saturday Night under the name Night before the 500, and is currently held on Friday night as the Carb Night Classic. Similarly, the NASCAR Busch Series Kroger 200 was given a "Night before the 400" status; a Truck Series race was added to the weekend in 1995. When Formula One raced at IMS, midget, sprint, and stock car races were held at ORP in the "Night Before F1" meets, including the 2002 and 2003 USGP races that featured a twin 25-lap midget format, with a full inversion, and the winner winning $50,000 if they could win both features.

The 2.5 mi, 15-turn road course, was used by the Indianapolis area Sports Car Club of America road racing events. The initial Indianapolis Raceway Park road race was an SCCA event held in 1961. In 1965, rookie driver Mario Andretti won his first Indy car race on the road course, in an event which was historic in that it was the first time in modern history that American Indy cars raced on a road circuit. For the next six years, the road course hosted the Hoosier Grand Prix, a round of the USAC National Championship Series, the same series that included the Indianapolis 500, as well as the USAC Stock Car series. Notably, in the 1969 movie , 's character, Frank Capua, competes in a USAC Stock Car event on the road course.

After an insurance investigation of the pit out opening for the road course, which is located along the left lane wall of the drag strip, the insurance carrier demanded the pit out be closed off with a permanent concrete wall. This effectively meant closing the road course for competition purposes, as there is no other area on the current track layout suitable to relocate a viable pit lane. However, club racing and private testing used a section of track that runs parallel to the backstretch of the oval (Turns 6–8) as a makeshift pit, although enough section of the return road for the drag strip could also be used if realigned. The last SCCA club road race was held in 2007. The road course surface is in disrepair and very bumpy, and would need improvement to be of use again. There are plans to redesign and renovate the road course, but track officials say it is a long term goal.

In 2012, it was announced that the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Lucas Oil Raceway would move to Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the Indiana 250 to replace the Kroger 200, and that it would be joined by Rolex Sports Car Series and Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge races under the banner "Super Weekend at the Brickyard". The Camping World Truck Series event was replaced with a new event at Eldora Speedway. As a result, the ARCA Racing Series became the lone national stock car racing series to sanction a race at the track, running its own 200-lap event. NASCAR announced in September 2021 that the Truck Series would return to Lucas Oil Raceway in 2022 as the first playoff race, marking the return by NASCAR after an eleven year absence. On December 8, 2021, the track announced that it would be renaming to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.

Lap records

 * NASCAR Nationwide Series David Green, August 5, 1994, 21.766s, 113.462mph (182.599km/h)
 * NASCAR Truck Series: Joe Ruttman, August 3, 2000, 22,081 s, 111,843 mph (179,994 km/h)

USAC National Championship
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