If the record is marked for extinction, Griffiths said, his company prefer a Honda to do the deed before Chevrolet and Lotus enter the series when a new engine formula debuts in 2012.

“It may be a case where someone goes and has a crack and breaks the record, then (the series) prevents us from going that fast again,” he said.

Team Penske president and Indiana native Tim Cindric said he looks forward to again hearing the once-frequent “It’s a new track record.”

With Chevrolet returning to open-wheel racing in 2012, along with new turbo engines from Honda and Lotus, Randy Bernard, right, plans on turning up the wick. (LAT)

Bernard also expressed hope that his series will eventually run double bills with the Sprint Cup series, although NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France has discounted the idea in recent years.

“I think any time us and NASCAR can work together, I just don’t see the negative with it,” Bernard said, citing an IndyCar study that showed 67 percent of its fans also like NASCAR. IndyCar, which has in the past competed at the same track on the same weekend as the NASCAR Camping World Truck series, would go anywhere the stock car series was willing to partner, Bernard said, but he’d prefer a road course. The reason: league research says the audiences there tend to be “younger, more international, all in all different” than the ones that attend oval races.

That would include Montreal, where the NASCAR Nationwide Series has competed since 2007, said Bernard, who hopes a non-oval compromise would be better received by NASCAR officials.

“If I was Brian, I could see his positioning,” he said. “Do you really want to see a car go 40 mph, 50 mph faster than a NASCAR? At a road or street course, the audiences are much younger, international and it is a different fan base there.”

Sprint Cup and IndyCar each currently compete at the Infineon Raceway road course in Sonoma, Calif.