More bang for the buck. More hay for the horsepower. Two for the price of one.

Those are the kinds of concepts veteran IndyCar driver Graham Rahal said Friday he would like to see across various forms of motorsports, speaking in an exclusive interview with EssentiallySports ahead of Sunday’s season opener in St. Petersburg, Florida.

In other words, Rahal and several fellow drivers in different series that he’s talked with over time believe there should be more crossover racing weekends.

For example, this weekend’s IndyCar season opener in St. Pete has a NASCAR component as an undercard to what promises to be an action-packed weekend: the Craftsman Truck Series races Saturday on the temporary street course as a prelude to Sunday’s open-wheel main event. There are even a few ringers taking part, with former IndyCar drivers James Hinchcliffe and Dario Franchitti in the Truck Series race.

But this weekend will not be a one-and-done deal: there will be another crossover event next weekend as the pecking order reverses, with IndyCar being the undercard for the NASCAR Cup and O’Reilly Auto Parts events at Phoenix Raceway.

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If both this weekend’s and next weekend’s racing experiments prove successful – and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t – Rahal believes we indeed will see more crossover events going forward. With different events at the same facility and on the same weekend, it will give fans a chance to have more value-added entertainment, not to mention potentially attract new fans (like turning IndyCar fans into NASCAR fans as well).

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to team up to build motorsport in this country,” Rahal said of sanctioning bodies coming together to work together and race together. “I’ve said the same to NHRA for years. Obviously, with my family and drag racing, I’ve said to them for years that I don’t know why we haven’t done double-headers too.

Rahal has a vested interest in wanting to see IndyCar perhaps co-host an event with the drag racing folks at NHRA: his father-in-law is 16-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force.

On the surface, fans may wonder how two completely different racing series can race at the same place and on the same weekend, but it isn’t that far-fetched a concept. It’s very easy for all three levels of NASCAR – Cup, O’Reilly, and Trucks – to share a track on the same weekend with IndyCar, regardless if it’s on an oval track, a road course, or a temporary street course.

Now, admittedly, combining NASCAR or IndyCar with NHRA/IHRA can be a bit more limiting, just because you’d need two different racetracks in close proximity to each other. But if you think about it, there actually are quite a few places.

Examples include Sonoma Raceway, which has both a road course and an adjacent drag strip. Likewise, for Bristol Motor Speedway and Bristol Dragway across the street.

“Places like Sonoma, it’s feasible, right?” Rahal said. “Obviously, it gets rid of some of the sportsman categories for drag racing, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to build the sports. And so for us to link up with NASCAR and to do more, I don’t see why it should stop. I mean, it’s good for both.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, well, the Indy cars are so much faster.’ At the end of the day, who cares? I mean, yes, speed is cool, but quality racing is cool. People come for entertainment. And so, to me, I don’t really care if one is faster than the other. Let’s go race together and let’s do it more often.”

You can even mix in World of Outlaws or High Limit dirt sprint car racing at several other facilities that can accommodate three different forms of racing (open-wheel, drag racing, and sprint cars) in the same facility. These include Chicagoland Speedway (NASCAR or IndyCar), Route 66 drag strip (NHRA), and Dirt Oval 66 (sprints), which is just a block away. Las Vegas Motor Speedway (NASCAR/IndyCar), the adjacent The Strip at LVMS (NHRA), and the LVMS Dirt Track (sprints); and Charlotte Motor Speedway (NASCAR/IndyCar), zMAX Dragway (NHRA), and the Dirt Track at Charlotte (sprints) across the street.

And although they’re not across the street from each other, within a short drive you have places like Indianapolis Motor Speedway (NASCAR/IndyCar) and nearby Lucas Oil Raceway Park (NHRA and sprint cars); Darlington Raceway (NASCAR/IndyCar) is four miles from Darlington Dragway (drag racing); Phoenix Raceway (NASCAR/IndyCar) and nearby Wildhorse Pass Motorsports Park (NHRA); Richmond Raceway (NHRA/IndyCar) and Virginia Motorsports Park (NHRA); Rockingham Speedway (NASCAR/IndyCar) and nearby Rockingham Dragway (“The Rock”); and Texas Motor Speedway (NHRA/IndyCar) and its adjacent dirt track (sprints) and NHRA racing at Texas Motorplex, roughly 60 miles between them.

While IndyCar announced last week a new long-term extension of agreements with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) Chevrolet and Honda to provide engines for the next several years, and with RAM back in trucks for NASCAR this season – and with Dodge likely headed back to NASCAR Cup potentially as soon as next season – the more crossover events that are held, there is also a good chance that more OEMs may want to also become part of the racing world.

“Hopefully that’ll bring more manufacturers into both,” Rahal said of IndyCar. “Both of us need more manufacturers. That’s just the reality. (NASCAR is) kind of really surviving on three (manufacturers currently), and we’re surviving on two (Chevy and Honda).

“But we need more than two. They need more than what they’ve got, right? I know Ram has gotten back in on some sides. But we all need to do more. And together, I think we can accomplish that.”

Contributing: Dylan Spaulding