The facility traces its origins to 1958, when fifteen Indianapolis-area businessmen and racing professionals — among them Tom Binford, Frank Dickie, Rodger Ward, and Howard Fieber — each invested $5,000 to convert a 267-acre farm tract into a motorsport complex. The initial plan centered on a 2.5-mile road course, but to hedge against financial risk, the investment group incorporated a quarter-mile drag strip along the course's main straight. Built with assistance from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), the drag strip was the first element completed, hosting its inaugural event in the fall of 1960. The complex opened under the name Indianapolis Raceway Park. A 0.686-mile paved oval followed in 1961, with a full oval renovation carried out in 1988 to increase speed on the circuit.
The facility has operated under several names over the decades, including O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Raceway, before formally adopting the name Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in December 2021.
The defining feature of Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park is its 4,400-foot drag strip, and the defining event on that strip is the NHRA U.S. Nationals, contested every Labor Day weekend. Transferred to Brownsburg from Detroit in 1961, the U.S. Nationals is the oldest and most prestigious event on the NHRA calendar. It is the only race on the NHRA schedule whose final eliminations are scheduled for Monday, and it carries the largest purse of any NHRA-sanctioned event, exceeding $250,000. A centerpiece of the weekend is the Traxxas Nitro Shootout, an all-star invitational for the two nitro divisions in which the Top Fuel winner and the Funny Car winner each earn $100,000.
Sprint car and midget racing headline the 0.686-mile oval program, with the track traditionally scheduling intensive programs on Saturday nights during major events at nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Each Memorial Day weekend the oval hosts a USAC Silver Crown, Sprint Car, and Midget Car event — informally considered a preliminary to the Indianapolis 500 — held on Friday night as the Carb Night Classic. NASCAR's Nationwide Series ran the Kroger 200 at the facility from 1982 until 2011, when the race migrated to IMS; the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series returned to the oval in 2022 after an eleven-year absence.
The 15-turn, 2.5-mile road course hosted significant events in its active years. Mario Andretti won his first Indy car race there in 1965, a historically notable occasion as the first time modern American Indy cars competed on a road circuit. The road course hosted the Hoosier Grand Prix as part of the USAC National Championship through the early 1970s. Insurance requirements eventually forced the permanent closure of the pit lane exit, effectively ending road course competition; the last SCCA club race ran in 2007, and the surface has since fallen into disrepair.
Among the complex's notable moments, Paul Newman's character in the 1969 film Winning competes in a USAC Stock Car event on the road course, giving the facility a brief appearance in American popular culture. The oval has hosted Red Bull Global Rallycross (2017) and Superstar Racing Experience (2021) alongside its traditional open-wheel and stock car programs.
Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park holds a unique position in American motorsport as the permanent home of the NHRA's flagship event. The U.S. Nationals' unbroken run at the venue since 1961 has embedded the Brownsburg facility into the identity of professional drag racing, making Labor Day weekend at Indianapolis a fixture in the sport's calendar for more than six decades.