The mile oval under Rattlesnake Hill has changed names, race dates and less obvious ways since the forbearers of the Verizon IndyCar Series first began rolling through the gates to race Indy cars in 1964. And as Phoenix’s unyielding suburban creep approaches, the storied venue known now as ISM Raceway is a unique stage on which the series can unite a past worth celebrating and a future that’s looking brighter by the day.

It’s homecoming weekend at INDYCAR’s would-be Darlington in the desert. The groundswell of nostalgia surrounding Marco Andretti’s use of a throwback paint scheme harkening to his grandfather Mario’s 52nd and final Indy car win 25 years ago at Phoenix suggests that the open-wheel community is ready to embrace it.

That has sometimes been a pained concept, considering the schisms that have served as evolutionary or reconstructive points in the sport’s timeline for decades. And, yes, Darlington Raceway in 2015 introduced waxing over the good ol’ days as an emotional and promotional vehicle for NASCAR’s top-level series. But it was a very good idea, one that teams quickly warmed to embrace as much as sentimental fans. Good ideas are very much worth appropriating without shame, and besides, Indy car racing has an extra half century of misty memories to begin reminiscing over – if anyone is counting.

Indy car teams have trotted out designs reminiscent of past glory before, including Helio Castroneves in the 2014 Indianapolis 500 utilizing a Yellow Submarine motif like those used by Johnny Rutherford and Rick Mears to win “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” But Marco Andretti’s No. 98 Oberto Beef Jerky/Circle K Honda fielded by Andretti Herta Autosport – an homage to the No. 6 Kmart/Texaco Havoline Lola/Ford his grandfather used in his final win at Phoenix in 1993 – feels like the first and proper step in a movement.

Some of that, certainly, has to do with Mario Andretti. Despite being retired since 1994, Mario remains one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable figures in racing. But some of it likely has to do with long-time fans finally feeling secure enough in the foothold the series has established – a widely approved new body kit and a multiyear television pact beginning next season on NBC Sports have been unveiled in recent months – and believing that fondly remembering older days doesn’t equate with pining for what was. Fan renderings of new Indy cars mocked up in vintage schemes have filtered onto social media for years, but seem more frequent recently. On Twitter this week, an iRacer shared a Miller Lite design like one current team owner Bobby Rahal used in his final seasons as a CART driver.

Would a Gilmore Racing AJ Foyt Racing livery not make you smile?

What about an STP car?

INDYCAR thinks and hopes you’d be amenable.

The concept that led to this first step toward a full throwback weekend began last July when ISM Raceway President Bryan Sperber visited Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the NASCAR race weekend to brainstorm ideas to commemorate Andretti’s final victory. Plans for honoring Mario and promoting a race in its third year back on the Verizon IndyCar Series schedule, in a metropolitan statistical area of 4.49 million, meshed into a slate of activities surrounding the legend.

Andretti Autosport, the team owned by Mario’s son Michael and that fields Marco’s car, was cognizant of the desire to create a throwback weekend and pitched sponsor Oberto Beef Jerky on the idea of a retro livery. Oberto pounced.

C.J. O’Donnell, chief marketing officer for INDYCAR and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, hopes the scheme will inspire the rest of the paddock to do the same in the future.

“We weren’t super aggressive with it this year, but we think this event will cement the idea in people’s minds and it will be a lot easier to do that going into 2019,” O’Donnell said. “And that’s the goal, to sort of let this gestate and grow naturally, and in two, three years’ time I think we’ll be able to deliver the vision. It’s not something we thought we could do overnight.”

The historical relationships of INDYCAR to the track in Avondale, Arizona – with a pantheon of open-wheel legends having won there – are similar to NASCAR’s with Darlington. It’s a trade of palmetto trees for saguaros as much as roofs for wide-open skies, but in both cases a bid to bind a fondly remembered past to future aspiration.

“After Indianapolis, Phoenix is the one track we race at that has got the deepest history,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve raced there over 50 times in the last 100 years of racing. I don’t think there’s a track that’s even close to that that’s currently active in the series right now. So, it’s a good place to pick to do it and there’s a lot of people in the series right now that have really fond memories of that track. It was the place where people tested, where a lot of really close races were held, it was a really important part of the schedule in the early part of the year.”

Mario Andretti’s first Indy car team, Dean Van Lines, was located in Phoenix and the four-time title winner believes his travelogue on the track in races and tests approaches 10,000 miles.

And on this weekend, the American icon has more miles to go in furthering the ambitions of a sport he helped stitch into the national sporting landscape, as INDYCAR faces an opportunity rare to most professional sports with a century of lineage. In Andretti and legendary driver and current team owner Foyt, the series has the motorsports equivalent of baseball immortals Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb as active series participants within reach of innumerable generations of fans each race weekend. Phoenix could provide the transfer station between those still-luminous icons and drivers that series officials hope will be future standard bearers, like defending series champion Josef Newgarden.

“It’s a fun balance between leaning into the history and tradition of the sport, and at the same time making it current and relevant for present drivers and future stars,” O’Donnell said. “The combination works really well. It’s conflict, yet symbiotic at the same time and it has to come together with the right secret sauce.

“It seems to be doing that in this race. If we can anchor those ideas of past and present in one race, we’ve succeeded.”