SPEEDWAY, Ind. — It appears Roger Penske is committed to running the Indianapolis 500 with fans this year.

“Trust me, we are going to run it (Indianapolis 500) with fans,” said Penske to Robin Miller of RACER Magazine. “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.”

The coronavirus pandemic has forced the race to be rescheduled for August 23rd, which should be within the time limit of Marion County reopening process that would allow the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to come through the gates to watch the race.

But, some are skeptical it will happen after it was announced last week that the GMR Grand Prix and Brickyard 400 double-header weekend, the first of it’s kind ever, would be run without fans in attendance. IMS citing Marion County’s reopening process and how the timing of it would not allow them to let fans in.

Penske also told RACER that if there had been any problems with fans had they allowed fans to watch the races Fourth of July weekend it probably would have killed any shot at allowing fans in for the Indy 500.

“Our team had several meetings leading up to last week and Mark (Miles) and I called the governor and the mayor and said based on the current situation, now is not the time,” Penske said. “It wasn’t a forced decision by anyone, just what we think was the right decision all things considered.”

Penske said he is willing to reschedule the Indianapolis 500 to October if he has to in order to allow fans to attend the race. IMS will be host IndyCar for an unprecedented third time in a calendar year in October with the IndyCar Harvest Grand Prix Oct. 3.