Usually, when two very different forms of racing series come together, it is expected that they won’t work very well, that they will clash. But at Phoenix, NASCAR and IndyCar came together, co-existed in harmony, and teased a future where the two having a race on the same track could be more frequent. One subscriber to that vision of the future is Jordan Bianchi, while his colleague Jeff Gluck shared a big concern from the weekend.

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During the latest episode of the Teardown podcast, Bianchi opened up about his thoughts on NASCAR and IndyCar racing together at Phoenix. While the two series have shared the concept of doubleheaders in the past, especially since Roger Penske’s IndyCar takeover in 2020, they had never shared an oval before.

But it’s worth emphasizing that the Phoenix weekend was largely positive, and not entirely. Adding to Bianchi’s point, the show’s co-host, Jeff Gluck, stated that the doubleheader makes sense from a fan’s perspective. But he then pointed out one big slip-up from the organizer’s standpoint from the weekend, which soured his experience.

“If you had a ticket yesterday and you come out and you watch IndyCar and you get a full day of working. But in terms of intermingling, I didn’t realise you have to have an ImdyCar separate credential. My NASCAR hard card could not get me into the IndyCar garage,” Gluck revealed. “When they were qualifying and practicing, I could not go on pit road.”

Having said that, Gluck claimed that it’d be cool if the track could do a waiver for the weekend where a reporter can go into both NASCAR and IndyCar events, especially when the point is to have that intermingling.

Other than this debacle, the response at Phoenix was positive. This was also the sentiment shared by Jordan Bianchi as he said, “I really felt this was a great celebration of motorsports. I’d like to see this on the schedule in some facet regularly, where you have IndyCar and NASCAR come together. And it can just be this intermingling of these two series, and just a celebration of motorsports in this country.”

The key figure behind the doubleheader at Phoenix got the most unique reward

Roger Penske was a key figure in making the IndyCar and NASCAR doubleheader happen. The owner of Team Penske, who also owns IndyCar, chose Phoenix as an early March bridge between the season-opener and the second race. Penske also turned out to be the person who ended up having not one, not two, but three reasons to celebrate over the weekend.

First of all, Team Penske has been celebrating its 60 years in racing. The team was founded in 1966 as Roger Penske decided to focus on the business side of racing over his own driving ambitions.

The second reason for Penske to celebrate came in the form of Josef Newgarden, as the 2x Indy 500 winning driver won the race on Saturday at Phoenix. Joey Logano also ended up winning the pole for Sunday’s Cup race. And at last, on Sunday, Ryan Blaney brought home Penske’s second win of the weekend.

This ensured that for the first time in his racing career, which stretches across six decades, Penske had two teams win on the same weekend at the same track.

Do you think Penske should consider making the doubleheader a regular fixture in future NASCAR-IndyCar calendars? Let us know in the comments below.