NASCAR officials talks future of the Cup Series at Iowa, repave

Mike Forde, NASCAR’s managing director of racing communications, isn’t sure about the Cup Series future of Iowa Speedway and he wouldn’t tell you even if he had.

In addition to his public and media relations role with the Sanctioning Body, Forde also hosts the Hauler Talk podcast where he discusses questions from the industry and other hot button topics of the week.

That includes whether or not the Cup Series will return to the Newton, Iowa speedway for a third consecutive season.

“TBD. As far as what we’re looking at for next year’s schedule, I think we’re probably three weeks away on when that schedule would drop,” Forde said. “Haven’t heard anything one way or the other on Iowa except all positives. I don’t have any inside information. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to talk about it anyway.”

Attendance for the race this year was down from the inaugural race with much of the temporary seating not needing to be constructed this year but Forde still credited fans in that region for showing up.

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The race is in doubt due to the reported return of Chicagoland Speedway next year – both tracks being located in the central Midwest.

“They come out, and they show their love for Iowa, and they’re voting with their wallet on whether it should be on the schedule,” he said. “I imagine the powers that be will take that into account.”

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And if Iowa Speedway does return for a third season, Forde acknowledges that a conversation about the pavement will need to be had with NASCAR repaving just the bottom of the corners prior to the first race.

The rest of the surface was laid down in 2006.

“Then the next step would be on a repave,” Forde said. “We would get with the industry on that as well and get their opinion. Some like the old surface, or whenever there is an old surface that has this question of do we need a repave or not. Some want to keep it because that does lead to some good racing, but there are parts of that track that are kind of put together. There’s some band-aids on that track that probably need to be the more permanent solution.”