If there still existed any doubts, they can be put to bed.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway and NASCAR officials will host the Cup Series’ lone visit on the 2.5-mile oval, after three years of running IMS's road course during its summer weekend in a crossover event with IndyCar that will disappear for the time being.

Next year’s Brickyard 400 – the 30^th anniversary of Jeff Gordon’s inaugural win on Aug. 6, 1994 – will be held Sunday, July 21; the logo gives a nod to that debut race with its flashes of black, gold and purple that became synonymous with NASCAR’s early days at the Racing Capital of the World.

IMS president Doug Boles did his best to mask his excitement last month, as rumors swirled during the NASCAR-IndyCar crossover weekend as to the future of the event, given Goodyear’s private tire test on the oval with Cup’s Next Gen car. As ultimately proved true, the series’ lone tire manufacturer typically doesn’t test without the future trending in that direction. The Xfinity series will also move to the oval, with its Pennzoil 250 to be held Saturday, July 20.

"We've heard especially over the last year that folks really want us to get back to the oval at IMS (for NASCAR). Cup's Next Gen car has never competed here, so we don't know how that's going to compete, but we feel like we need to give an opportunity to that," Boles said Thursday in a ceremony at IMS. "I'll admit, it's kinda odd to see a Cup car going the opposite direction around the racetrack, but it's been a lot of fun, and we've had some great racing and really appreciated (this chapter).

"But as we start thinking about the 30th anniversary and the importance of that history and tradition that makes IMS so special, we've decided it's time to go back to the oval."

Insider: Here's what NASCAR's likely return to the IMS oval means for the event's future

Kevin Harvick, the 47-year-old NASCAR veteran who is set to retire at the end of this Cup season, won the last two editions of Cup’s Brickyard 400, meaning the track won’t have a chance at crowning the first back-to-back-to-back winner on the oval in Cup or IndyCar history. Two active Cup drivers in 2024 have won on the oval: Kyle Busch (2015-16) and Brad Keselowski ('18).

Harvick’s third career Brickyard 400 win came during the pandemic-altered 2020 campaign, a season in which IMS didn’t host fans for either of its two major race weekends. To help streamline its event weekends, NASCAR and IndyCar jointly ran a race weekend at the same track for the first time that year – Cup on the oval and Xfinity and IndyCar on the road course. That evolved for the next three years into a historic tripleheader weekend all on IMS’s road course.

NASCAR drivers react to Brickyard 400 return

Cup drivers’ reactions were mixed to the switch off of the oval. A largely youthful contingent would say they grew up watching their heroes Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Gordon race and win on the oval and dreamt of doing the same. But they also just simply loved the idea of racing to a checkered flag across the famous Yard of Bricks.

Kyle Busch: If NASCAR can't run race worthy of IMS oval 'we need to go somewhere else'

Legends of the sport – most notably Harvick – said it was "a disgrace" for the Cup Series to run on a course he compared to racing "in a parking lot."

Perhaps with a dose of sarcasm, Boles said Thursday he may try to make Harvick the pace car driver for next year's Brickyard 400, if only to "rub in the fact that he's not going to be there" racing in his retirement.

Fellow multi-time Brickyard 400 winner Busch spouted off in April of this year, saying, "I don't know why we ever went to the road course, to be honest with you. I don't think it did an uptick or changed a damn thing at Indy. If we can't do a good enough job getting enough people to Indy to suffice us staying on the oval, then we need to go somewhere else."

Pointedly, in a unique, brash show of appreciation for the road course, last month’s Verizon 200 winner Michael McDowell called the impending move back to the oval "lame" and called for the likely never-to-happen dream of NASCAR running both courses in the same season – or even the same weekend.

“You know me, I’m biased. I want to run on as many road courses as we can, but I do understand the prestigiousness of running the Brickyard and being on the oval,” McDowell said after his August win, just the second of his Cup career. “I do think that this Next Gen car is going to put on a good race – a better race than our previous generation car here.”

After four consecutive years of sharing the track, NASCAR and IndyCar will race on the same day during the Brickyard weekend at separate tracks − in separate countries − for just the third time, including the open-wheel series' 2009 and 2010 visits to Edmonton. IndyCar will race that day in Toronto, and it will air on Peacock, eliminating the chance that it would lead into NASCAR's IMS oval return.

'We would all rather win on the oval': NASCAR drivers support return to IMS oval

'Let's give this new car a chance'

A decade or more of Brickyard 400s had largely been single-file processional affairs with those at the front often only able to overtake due to a mistake or lengthy pitstop. Presently in the second year of Cup’s Next Gen era, Boles, NASCAR officials and drivers have faith that next year’s race will be more exciting.

"If you look across the board, generally (the Next Gen car) has done a great job for a lot of the racing, so I think we're hopeful (we'll see that)," said Boles, adding that NASCAR and Goodyear have additional tests planned ahead of next year's Brickyard 400 to try and improve the competition from an entertainment standpoint. "It's no secret that our biggest detractor, other than the heat, has been that the racing felt down in the mid-2000s, and that's been a struggle.

"Part of this change is, Let's give this new car a chance."

What the track will see in terms of attendance is anyone’s guess, though it would seem likely that the historic anniversary and the switch to the race’s roots would have a Sunday crowd better than the “well over 60,000” IMS officials reported to IndyStar this year – which stood as the best in at least seven years. Up until the tire debacle of 2008, the race would regularly draw well over 200,000 fans, but the carnage of that race, where race control was forced to throw competition cautions every 10-12 laps for tires constantly falling apart, triggered a drastic fall to just 160,000 fans in 2009. By 2017, it was down to 25,000, though it did jump back to roughly 60,000 in 2019 -- the final fan-attended Cup oval race at IMS.

“I enjoy being on the oval, but a lot of folks at NASCAR, they need it to be a good race. We need to be able to race each other,” 23XI driver Tyler Reddick said in August. “And if we really can’t race each other and pass well, I don’t know if we really should run the oval.

“We’ll see shortly.”

Added 2021 Cup champ Kyle Larson back in August: “I think there’s no denying that the oval is going to be a much more boring race, probably, but I just think just the prestige of the oval, we would all rather win on the oval than the road course. When you think of IMS, you don’t think of the road course. The Brickyard 400 is a crown jewel event that we lost. So if we can get it back on the oval, it would be great for our sport.”

From 2021: Boles explains how, why IMS will balance future oval, road course NASCAR races

Boles: Road course likely to come back at some point

Looking past next July, which is bound to be a celebratory, exuberant atmosphere, given the return of the oval, Boles said his staff is already focused on how they can breathe new life into this event. And as one of NASCAR's Crown Jewel races, there's no reason why it can't find some of the glory of decades ago in the same vein the Indianapolis 500 seems to have taken off again during Roger Penske's ownership.

As soon as next year, Boles said, he and his IMS event staff will be targeting new elements to the weekend to keep the festive nature and grand, important feel NASCAR's IMS weekend has had the last couple years when it had the novelty of the IndyCar crossover. Without making any grand pronouncements, he said those might include the opportunity to camp in the infield -- as they did during this month's IMSA weekend -- as well as other entertainment options in the midway "to give people a reason to make a weekend out of it" while they move from three days to two. It's unclear whether a concert element -- something that seems like a given at many of the biggest racing weekends on the U.S. motorsports calendar presently -- might be tossed around as well.

In a way, too, Boles also merely hopes the celebration they aim to put on next year -- perhaps a smaller version of the 500's 100th anniversary in 2016 -- both can force a surge in ticket sales for that event, while persuading more folks to continue coming back. What that future looks like, though, he says is yet to be discussed.

As far back as 2021, in the weeks after he and IMS hosted the first Cup race on the road course, Boles has often talked about finding a regular rotation between the oval and road course for NASCAR, so whether to oval is back for good is unclear. In speaking to IndyStar last month, Boles said it may depend a lot on fan reaction, but in listening to him, it's hard to imagine, barring a disaster of a race next July, the Cup will be back on the road course sooner than 2026.

"We don't have anything pre-determined, but we've talked about everything," he said. "So let's get back on the oval and see how it races and how fans accept it, and then we'll talk to our fans and make a decision from there.

"Do I think we'll be back on the road course some day? Yes, absolutely, because I just think the flexibility of this venue allows us to do that and change things up, but is that already in 2025, or is it later? We don't know that yet. And then at what point do we come up with some formal rotation that's regular, or do we just kinda change it up as we go? We haven't gotten that far. We just want to execute (2024) the best we can and make the racing the best we can, and then we'll sit down and think it through."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: NASCAR at IMS: Brickyard 400 returns to oval after three years away