Penske Entertainment President and CEO Mark Miles met with a small group of reporters on Thursday to discuss various topics surrounding the category, including an IndyCar version of a NASCAR-like charter system concept.
NASCAR implemented the system in 2016, allowing owners with possession of a charter to have a guaranteed spot in each race and collect more prize money.
The latest meetings with IndyCar team owners happened on Wednesday.
“We've put out a couple of different concepts for charters in previous team owner meetings, and frankly, not been very close to consensus on what it might look like,” Miles said.
“Yesterday, we aired another kind of high-level starting point for the concept of charters that maybe we'll have more traction. And we're going to work with a smaller group of team owners to get that developed. We'd like to see it fully developed and adopted before the 500 in coming weeks.”
When asked by Autosport if the push to implement a charter system within that desired timeframe is to enable guaranteed entries into this year’s Indy 500, thus breaking tradition of ensuring the fastest 33 qualifiers make the field, Miles shared the current stance.
“I guess they're related,” he said.
“The reason we'd like to get on with this is first of all, we've been talking about it for a while and okay, let's figure it out. Let's really lock up with the teams to figure out what's satisfactory. What would create value for them and for the series.”
Source: Autosport