Would Chevy return to Indy Car Racing?

The topic of a possible return to the Indianapolis 500 is never far away when five-time Indy starter Tony Stewart returns to IMS. Two-time Allstate 400 at the Brickyard winner Stewart visited IMS today to help Chevrolet unveil the new Midget engine that will power Tony Stewart Racing driers Tracy Hines and Levi Jones in USAC events, and he also discussed “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing."

TONY STEWART: “There’s part of me that thinks running at Indy and in IndyCar is a chapter of my life that is closed, and then there is the emotional part of me that says, ‘Never say never.’ I don’t know if I will ever get in an Indy car again, but if that happens, it’s obviously going to be a long way down the road because I have a lot of commitments on the NASCAR side. If I was going to come to Indianapolis again, I don’t want to come and show up and run the month of May. If I am going to do it, I need to start at Homestead, and I need to run all the races leading up to the month of May to really feel like I am being fair to the team and being fair to myself, and have enough time in the car to where when we show up in the month of May, we are ready to go. Where I am comfortable in the car, I’m comfortable with the people I am working with and feel like I am in tune and up to speed with the technology of the setups and what is going on. As long as I am driving a stock car, that basically takes that part of it out of the equation. I’m not going to be one of these guys who just shows up and runs the Indy 500. I’ve ran the Indy 500; I want to win the Indy 500. I honestly don’t believe in the era of the driver that you can just come in on a one-off race and do that. It’s virtually impossible. You can’t come in and expect as good as the guys doing it every week." (About the unification of open-wheel racing under the IndyCar Series banner): “I'm really excited to see everybody back. What's the car count this year so far? Thirty nine? That might actually make it fun and exciting to come here on Bump Day. That's going to be cool. I think you're going to see one of the most competitive fields ever at Indy this year."

GM Racing Director Mark Kent was asked about the possibility of Chevrolet returning to a unified IndyCar Series in the future during a press conference unveiling the new Chevrolet Midget racing engine today at IMS.

MARK KENT (Director, GM Racing): “First, I would like to say that the unification is going to be great for the open-wheel sport. I think the two groups getting back together is only going to be beneficial for the series. As far as Chevrolet's involvement in open wheel, we were involved for many years. We currently aren't, as you know, but each year we take a look at all our racing venues and open wheel, for example, is new to us in the last couple of years. We look across every opportunity out there and try to make sure that our involvement is justified by a return on our investment to sell cars. Obviously, that's what we're trying to do. Everything we look at, we look at from a business perspective, and we will definitely keep our eye on open wheel as it moves forward and continues down this new path."