INDIANAPOLIS — On Monday morning, the NTT INDYCAR SERIES unveiled their 17-race slate for the 2024 season. There’s been some changes between next year’s slate and this past one. Texas and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway second road course date are no more. A Milwaukee doubleheader is added to replace them both.

Portland moves up a week, Laguna Seca moves up three months. So, why all the changes?

Well, it’s because this was a difficult schedule to make with the Olympics involved in late July through early August.

“Well, generally I don’t think it’s any more complicated or difficult than it has been in my career for a very long time,” Mark Miles told me on Monday afternoon. “The special complication everybody would understand for next year is the Olympics and NBC’s complete commitment to bringing America everything about the Games.

“It is harder. It has been harder every four years. But even that phenomenon isn’t new to us.

“I will say, NBC has been a really good partner in trying to help us navigate those sorts of complexities around finding the best windows.

“But the basic structure is there to start in March and to conclude the championship in early September at this point. Going forward, as I’ve said, we are a little bit on hold. We have various templates as we call them for how the schedule for next year might work, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to go through the process to pick our next media partner and understand what’s important to them and how that creates the best opportunities for INDYCAR fans.

“That’ll be different this time, but that happened when we first went all NBC in what seems like just a few years ago.”

INDYCAR knew Indianapolis would have May 11 and 28th. Detroit was set for June 2. St. Pete was for March 10. Long Beach was on the schedule for April 21. Mid-Ohio was doing too well around the Fourth of July so why move it. Nashville was going to close the season on Sept. 15. The Olympics would cause a pause in action in late July and early August.

So, they had March 17-Sept. 8 to fill the gap for Thermal, Texas, Barber, Road America, Laguna Seca, Iowa, Toronto, World Wide Technology Raceway, Portland and Milwaukee and knew that Easter (March 31), the Olympics and the already known dates were off limits.

Some tracks wanted a move to primetime which meant a new race weekend. Some wanted a new date in general. So you go from there.

Texas was supposed to be April 7. It would have been a race to fill an easy spring gap. Instead, there’s just 2 races, 1 of which being an all-star race in a 35-day span to begin 2024 off with.

Good thing Thermal was added or it would have been St. Pete (March 10) then a long gap before Long Beach (April 21).

However, this wasn’t INDYCAR’s doing to drop Texas. This is on the track and/or NASCAR. They both needed a new date. Being in the playoffs as their lone date wasn’t working. For the second straight year, temperatures soared over 100 degrees for their Cup weekend. A move back to a spring date would make sense in a way that they’re not fighting the heat or going head-to-head with the local Dallas Cowboys.

But, with COTA in late March and the staffing that comes from TMS to help down there, it means a date in April if they truly are to move away from the playoffs. Easter is March 31 which means that they needed that April 7 or 14 race weekend. As a result, it pushed INDYCAR back.

“It was really fairly late in this process for us that it was clear what their schedule was going to look like, and therefore the implications for us,” he said.

“I think it’s in the best place possible under the circumstances. I think both of us would have preferred to be able to keep a pretty normal schedule and to be there, returning there next year. That wasn’t possible.”

The thing is, there really wasn’t any other free weekend’s left.

“I think everybody understands we have basically zero flexibility after the Olympics next year, and with NASCAR’s move into the spring there, there really wasn’t an opportunity from TMS’s perspective for us,” Miles said on Monday afternoon.

Long Beach and Barber close out the month of April before a jammed packed May and June.

May 11 is the Gallagher Grand Prix. A weekend later is Indy 500 Time Trials. A weekend after that the 108th Running of the Indianapolis 500. A weekend after thais Detroit. The next week Road America.

That’s 5 straight weeks of action and if you go back to April, that’s 7 weekend’s out of 8 with INDYCAR on track.

Then, with knowing that July 26-Aug. 11 being off for the Olympics and the season finale at Nashville being Sept. 15, it left not much room for the rest of the dates. Between Long Beach and Toronto, that’s 11 weekends of action in a 14 week span which includes 11 of the 17 races.

After the break you had Gateway, Portland, Milwaukee and Nashville to fit in during a 5 week span.

Gateway moves up a week to go back to under the lights. They couldn’t run on the last weekend of August due to a conflict with the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona. It wouldn’t be wise to host a Saturday night race on USA going head-to-head with NASCAR’s regular season finale on NBC. But, with this past year’s race being well viewed, it was a tough balance on whether to do so or just leave it as is.

“That’s a really good question, and it is balance,” Miles told me on scheduling a night race these days with TV numbers being higher on Sunday afternoons. “So there are lower HUT levels generally speaking for sports on Saturday nights, and that’s a factor, but we think it’s incredibly appealing sport when INDYCAR can race under the lights. That’s on the other side of the coin.

“Then you look at the other things going on on those days. Do you want to compete against Big Ten football head-to-head on a Saturday during the day?

“So there’s just lots of considerations.

“But I think maybe the most compelling thing is that we just love our racing on short ovals under the lights.”

Nashville was already set as the finale on Sept. 15. So, you get Portland and Milwaukee to do something with and have only a few weekend’s available.

Weather wouldn’t cooperate to run Portland or Gateway in March. Could April 14 have worked? That’s iffy too. Then with that stretch of races from April through the end of June, the only race weekend it could have worked was Fathers Day but that’s two weeks before them hosting a Formula E event. They also host the NASCAR Xfinity Series in early June too. That’s too much for one track in one month.

Plus, from the GMR Grand Prix through Fathers Day weekend, INDYCAR would have been on track for 6 straight weeks if Portland ran before Laguna Seca.

Then, with the success of Mid-Ohio around the Fourth of July weekend, you can’t risk moving that. As a result, you get Portland going in late August in a difficult stretch of Gateway, Portland, Milwaukee in back-to-back-to-back weeks before a week off then going to Nashville.

It’s something that INDYCAR knew would be a potential problem by Jay Frye says he talked to the teams beforehand to see if it’s even feasible.

“Well, coming right out of the Olympics, we’ll go to Gateway, Portland and Milwaukee back-to-back-to-back, that’ll be the hardest part of the schedule,” Frye said.

“Again, it’s because of the Olympics; teams are aware — we talked to them obviously before this. It’s doable. It’s short oval cars versus road course cars that are more similar obviously than superspeedway cars, so it should be fine.

“Like you mentioned, going from Milwaukee to have the week off to Nashville, so obviously that’s going to give them a break, give them the ability to catch up, and then we’ll head to Nashville for the championship weekend.”

You also notice that there’s no second IMS road course date. That would practically confirm the long-rumored Brickyard 400 coming back on the NASCAR side of things too and with Texas being dropped, it means that the Cup playoff date is no more too.