THIS WEEK: iRacing Brickyard 400 Special Event
July 20th, 2026 by Justin Melillo
iRacing’s Special Event calendar features a selection of the world’s most compelling races across numerous disciplines. Whether you’re interested in stock cars or sports cars, open-wheel formula cars or sprint cars, sticking to pavement or playing in the dirt, running solo or racing with a team of your closest friends, our Special Events have something for everyone!
This week, the iRacing Brickyard 400 is the latest full-length special event on the NASCAR iRacing Series calendar, taking on the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway for 400 miles, or 160 laps of competition. Here’s everything you need to know about participating in this iRacing Special Event.
TRACK: Indianapolis Motor Speedway – NASCAR oval
CARS COMPETING: NASCAR Cup Series Gen 7 “Next Gen”
- Next Gen NASCAR Cup Series Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
- Next Gen NASCAR Cup Series Ford Mustang
- Next Gen NASCAR Cup Series Toyota Camry
TIMES TO RACE | JULY 22nd TO JULY 27TH:
FIXED SETUP RACES:
- Wednesday 21:00 GMT (Wednesday 5 PM ET)
- Friday 1:00 GMT (Thursday 9 PM ET)
- Saturday 10:00 GMT (Saturday 6 AM ET)
- Saturday 16:00 GMT (Saturday 12 PM ET)
- Monday 1:00 GMT (Sunday 9 PM ET)
OPEN SETUP RACES
- Thursday 1:00 GMT (Wednesday 9 PM ET)
- Thursday 19:00 GMT (Thursday 3 PM ET)
- Saturday 1:00 GMT (Friday 9 PM ET)
- Sunday 14:00 GMT (Sunday 10 AM ET)
BROADCAST DETAILS
There will be a broadcast of the Top Split broadcast for the third Open Setup time slot, the Saturday 01:00 GMT, or Friday 9 PM ET event. RACESPOT will be handling the call of the action. The show will be available at iRacing.com/live.
ABOUT THE iRACING BRICKYARD 400
The iRacing Brickyard 400 is the third of five full-length races placed on the NASCAR iRacing Series calendar. The NASCAR iRacing Series runs from February through November. This race is run not in its own official series, but in the NASCAR iRacing Series, during those normal NiS times.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway has played host to the Brickyard 400 in the NASCAR Cup series since 1994. Running the current NASCAR Cup Series cars at the current day edition of the Brickyard, available in both fixed setup and open setup variety. The race will be scheduled in the sim for July 26th at 1:00 pm with dynamic weather enabled.
This event is open to iRacing members that have an Oval license at Class C or higher, or at Class D with a 4.0 Safety Rating. Splits will be determined by iRating. Splits can have up to 37 drivers, and a disqualification limit has been set at 25 incident points, or 25X, with a penalty to be served at 17X as per normal.
ABOUT INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
The first motorsports competition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway took place in 1909 in the form of motorcycle races and automobile races soon followed. When the track’s original surface of crushed stone and tar proved problematic, the owners paved the track with more than three-million bricks, giving rise to the nickname: “The Brickyard.”
It wasn’t until Memorial Day of 1911, however, that the first 500-mile race was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and won by Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp. What was destined to be known as the Indianapolis 500 quickly became one of the nation’s leading sports events in the 1920s and ’30s. To win the “Indy 500″ was to achieve instant notoriety, and the names of early winners like Tommy Milton, Louis Meyer and Wilbur Shaw are indelibly etched in the annals of American motorsports.
A nationwide ban on motorsports during World War II, however nearly spelled the end for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which lay in virtual ruin when a consortium headed by Indiana businessman Tony Hulman purchased the facility in 1945. Hulman and his partners invested heavily in the facility and expanded the spectator capacity to the point where IMS became the world’s largest sporting arena (in terms of permanent seats) and the Indy 500 the world’s largest single-day sports event with crowds regularly topping 350,000. The march of progress also included the gradual replacement of paving over the bricks, and by 1961 the resurfacing had been completed – all but the famous “yard of bricks” at the start/finish line as a tribute to the tradition of “The Brickyard.”
The 1990s saw major changes to the speedway. In 1994, IMS president Tony George, the grandson of Tony Hulman, consummated an agreement with NASCAR to stage a stock car race – the Brickyard 400 – at the Speedway. Then in 2000, George brought Formula One racing back to the USA after a nine-year absence, staging the U.S. Grand Prix at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
To do so, however, required a massive renovation of the facility, including the construction of a road course that combined a portion of the oval with a twisting infield section. Although the F1 race would only last through 2007, the road course has since played host to MotoGP and sports car races as well as a stand-alone IndyCar race in early May. Together with the Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400, this remarkable variety of events underscores the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s moniker as “The Racing Capital of the World.”
To learn more about the event and join in on the discussion, visit our Special Events page and head over to the iRacing Forums.
For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit iRacing.com.
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