Indy 500 Will Be Rescheduled If Fans Aren't Allowed to Attend Race on Aug. 23

The Indianapolis 500 will apparently only happen as scheduled on Aug. 23 if fans are permitted to attend amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar Series owner Roger Penske revealed as much to Robin Miller of RACER, noting it would be postponed until October if fans are not allowed at the speedway on the planned August date. President and CEO of Penske Entertainment Corporation Mark Miles confirmed the news to Michael McCleary of the Indianapolis Star.

Penske came to the decision following conversations with Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett.

McCleary noted that "Road America for the IndyCar's doubleheader weekend in Wisconsin July 11-12 is the earliest possible day fans could be welcome to an IndyCar event."

That means fans will not be in attendance at the IndyCar/NASCAR doubleheader and Brickyard 400 on July 4-5 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

"Trust me, we are going to run it (Indianapolis 500) with fans," Penske said, per Miller. "We're on for fans in August and planning on it and we feel good. It's still almost three months from now and I think we'll be OK. But we will run it only with fans."

This year's edition of the famous race will be the 104th.

The race traditionally happens on Memorial Day Weekend in May, but the decision to push it back to August amid the pandemic was made in March. It typically features hundreds of thousands of fans in attendance, making the plans to hold it in front of spectators in some capacity all the more notable.

As of Sunday, there have been more than seven million confirmed cases and more than 400,000 deaths stemming from COVID-19 across the world.