The final running and the record field
The Indianapolis 8 Hour runs on the Speedway's road course in October and closes the Intercontinental GT Challenge season there. SRO Motorsports Group, the series organiser, states in its release of 15 September 2026 that the event "hosts the Intercontinental GT Challenge and GT World Challenge America powered by AWS championship showdowns for the final time", and that "America's leg of the globe-trotting GT3 series is moving to Circuit of The Americas from next season". The same release dates the weekend 8-10 October. The Speedway publishes October 9-11, 2026 on its events navigation, the three days it sells tickets for.
The release carries the phrase "record provisional entry". The provisional entry list published on 15 September 2026 returns 29 rows across nine manufacturers: Porsche 11, Mercedes-AMG six, Ferrari three, BMW three, Chevrolet two, and one each from Ford, Lamborghini, McLaren and Aston Martin. Twenty-five of the 29 rows carry USA nationality, and the other four are Canadian, Danish, German and Sammarinese. The list carries team, nationality and car with no driver column. SRO states the full entry list including driver combinations will be published closer to the event.
The release text and the list disagree on one marque. The prose reads "Porsche brings the largest number of entries to the Indianapolis 8 Hour, with 10 cars" while the list returns eleven Porsche rows. The prose also names Riley Motorsports where the list names Riley Technologies. The list is the count.
No earlier edition carries a field size on the round's own page, so the word "record" belongs to the organiser and the 29-car figure belongs to the list. A procurement file keeps both labels attached.
What the venue publishes for the three days
The Speedway publishes 27 gate hours across the weekend: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday 9 October, ten hours; 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday 10 October, twelve; and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday 11 October, five. The eight-hour race is listed 12:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on the Saturday. SRO's provisional event schedule prints sunset at 7:12 p.m. that day, 78 minutes before the listed finish.
Parking is Lot 2 on Georgetown Road, across from Gate 6, a grass lot at $10 a day or $25 for the three-day pass. The venue's pass rules require every vehicle to fit a 10-by-20-foot space and bar buses and box trucks even where they fit. A pass without a vehicle holds no space. Rideshare and taxi drop-off and pick-up sit at Lot 3P and bicycle parking outside Gate 6. The venue's transportation page lists no shuttle service for the weekend.
The terms a group buyer signs against
Group sales run through 317-492-8100 and groupsales@brickyard.com. New purchases of 20 or more carry four benefits: up to $40 off ticket options, a $5 retail discount at participating Speedway shops, a named group sales representative and special group block seating. The offer excludes previously purchased tickets. A reservation costs nothing, a group may cancel any time before final payment, and full payment falls due 30 days before the race. For the 10 October race that date was 10 September 2026. Once payment arrives the tickets turn non-refundable and non-exchangeable.
The price table carries four dated columns, and the live column on this read is the fourth, headed "Sept. 22 - Oct. 11". Three-day general admission reads $85, Saturday $40 to $45, Sunday $30 and Friday $20. The same column prices Paddock Plus at $90, $50, $45 and $45. Arithmetic on the venue's columns puts the step into the live column at 21.43 per cent on the three-day line, 20 per cent on the Sunday line, and between 14.29 and 28.57 per cent on the Saturday line. The Friday line has held at $20 since 1 May.
Three single-day general admission tickets cost more than the three-day ticket: $90 at the lower Saturday price and $95 at the upper, against $85. Twenty three-day tickets come to $1,700. Suites are published at $5,000 plus tax for 25 people and $7,500 plus tax for 50, beside an access line that still reads "October 16-18".
What the venue does not publish
No attendance figure, room block or lodging rate appears on any Speedway page read for this event. The event FAQ answers the hotel question with "Information may be obtained by calling Visit Indy at 1-800-556-INDY or visiting www.visitindy.com". A group booking rooms for this weekend starts with a published gate clock, a published price ladder and a published payment deadline, and no published room terms to set against a hotel's first offer.
No October slot on the next calendar
The Speedway's own event navigation lists seven events. Six carry 2027 dates: the Sonsio Grand Prix on 14-15 May 2027, the Indianapolis 500 on 18-30 May 2027, BC39 and USAC Indiana Sprint Week with dates pending, Brickyard Weekend on 23-25 July 2027 and the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks on 17-19 September 2027. The Indianapolis 8 Hour is the only entry dated 2026, and the earliest 2027 date in that list is 14-15 May.
SRO's 2026 calendar carries Bathurst, the Nurburgring, Spa, Suzuka and Indianapolis, and the release states the American leg moves to Circuit of The Americas next season. The October weekend that SRO records as the close of a seven-year association sits in neither publisher's 2027 record, and nothing published for the Speedway's remaining events fills it.