IndyCar set for Dallas street race in 2026

09/27/2024 04:23 PM

The NTT IndyCar Series will be headed back to the Lone Star State in 2026.

After holding its last race at Texas Motor Speedway in 2023, RACER has learned Penske Entertainment will take its marquee open-wheel series to compete on the outskirts of Dallas. The street race is set to be held around AT&T Stadium, home of the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys, on the team's expansive campus located in Arlington, Texas.

A representative from Penske Entertainment declined to discuss the event when reached for comment.

IndyCar, under its previous iterations as CART, the Indy Racing League and USAC, has a long history of racing in Texas, with the most recent stops being made at TMS on the outskirts of Dallas/Fort Worth, which was a staple until 2023, and Circuit of The Americas in 2019. IndyCar returned to COTA for preseason testing the following year, but the scheduled race was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the venue was dropped from the schedule in 2021.

Prior to that was the street race in Houston, which ran around the unused Astrodome and the stadium for the NFL's Houston Texans, most recently in 2014. IndyCar also raced on the grand two-mile oval at Texas World Speedway in College Station in 1973, and again from 1976-79.

Formula 1 held an eponymous Dallas Grand Prix in 1984 in southern Dallas at Fair Park, which was subject to excruciating heat, and in 1988, the SCCA Trans Am series made a visit to a revised layout at Fair Park before the series moved to Addison Airport and Reunion Arena, ultimately calling time on the event after the 1996 season.

Confirmation of the IndyCar event coming to the property belonging to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is expected to take place in the coming weeks.