It’s the back end of the IndyCar Series season, which means we turn our attention to what venues will host a race in 2016.
Cornerstone events like Indianapolis, Toronto, Detroit and Long Beach are set in stone, but there are a few question marks about some other venues that’ve been talked about recently. Here’s my synopsis:
Auto Club Speedway Fontana
This year’s race on a Saturday afternoon in late June in the furnace of Southern California is really make-or-break for IndyCar fortunes on the big 2.0-mile oval, and given the allotment it has on the schedule, I’m not expecting a big crowd. No matter that track management have bent over backwards to provide great value-for-money tickets, the simple fact is that you’ll only get a smattering of diehards on such a hot day.
A night time race at Auto Club is the best alternative as far as the weather godxs but being a west coast venue, a night race there (or even one that starts a little before sunset) is a nine o’clock green flag on the east coast, you’re at risk of the already-small IndyCar fan base falling asleep before the race reaches halfway.
I doubt we’ll see Auto Club Speedway return, but IndyCar management does crazy things, so nothing’s off the table.
Boston
The IndyCar Series announced a new street race through the historic Seaport District, on an 11-turn, 2.25-mile course that will pass by the Convention and Exhibition Centre. It’s scheduled for September 2-4 2016, the Labour Day weekend, and will serve as the IndyCar Series finale.
Back in the heady days of American open wheel racing, before the CART/Indy Racing League split, the New England region was a big part of the schedule, with the New Hampshire Motor Speedway hosting races on it’s 1.0-mile oval for many years, and always to good crowds.
The same cannot be said of the one-off return to New Hampshire. The initial contract was a multi-year affair, but the promoters lost somewhere around one million dollars and opted not to continue. A street race, in the middle of one of America’s biggest cities, has a better chance at success, and I’m excited to see what the city puts on next year.
Pocono
The third leg of the reinstated Triple Crown of 500-mile races is scheduled for Independence Day weekend, and track owners will be watching what sort of crowd comes through the gates.
Whilst racing at the front of the pack has been pretty good on the triangular track in the Pennsylvania mountains, the rest of the field tends to get too strung out. Twenty-odd IndyCars on a 2.5-mile oval isn’t nearly enough. You just don’t have the same battle through traffic at Pocono (nor Auto Club Speedway) that you get at Indianapolis when there are thirty-three cars racing. Surviving back markers is half the thrill of racing at Indy.
Without a big crowd next weekend, I don’t see Pocono back next year.
The Milwaukee Mile
Press in the last few weeks has indicated that Michael Andretti’s promotional arm, who run the race on Milwaukee’s famous 1.0-mile bullring oval, is looking at stepping away if this year’s race isn’t a success. That would be a shame, as it has long remained one of the bastions of American open wheel racing.
Sadly, the traditional date that Milwaukee had for such a long time – the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 – has been snatched up by a race on the other side of Lake Michigan, in Detroit, and it seems to have driven most of the crowd away. There’ve been complaints about long gaps with no on-track action, even when the entire event is run over just one day, practice and qualifying in the morning, the race in the afternoon, on a Saturday recently.
Whether or not Milwaukee remains on the schedule depends largely on this year’s attendance. Tradition dictates that the IndyCar Series needs to be there. Will it be, though? I’m not so sure.
NOLA Motorsports Park
There’s been some talk recently of a lawsuit surrounding NOLA and the water-logged inaugural IndyCar Series race there earlier in the year. Promoters, Andretti Autosport, filed a lawsuit against the owner of the venue after getting ‘assurances from NOLA Motorsports that there would be enough state grant money to help compensate the company for its services.”
New Orleans-area media reports that the entity set up to collect the government money is now in financial dire straits, and Andretti hasn’t been paid. Race reviews were mixed, and the torrential weekend-long downpour didn’t help matters much, but if the promoters aren’t getting paid, there’s every chance that the Grand Prix of New Orleans might be one of too many recent one-and-done IndyCar events.
Road America
The one that every IndyCar fan wants! The purest road course in North America – and, easily amongst the top five best, worldwide – is home to the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the Tudor United Sports Car Series, but not the IndyCar Series, which is damn near criminal.
There is a ray of hope, given that track officials have been vocal about working towards a 2016 date that, instead of being a double-header with the Tudor Series, would feature the IndyCar Series, plus Indy Lights and the rest of the Road to Indy ladder system that features a variety of junior open wheel categories.
In recent years, IndyCar has shied away from a race at Road America as they try to embed the race at the Milwaukee Mile. The two tracks aren’t far away from one another, and although in theory it was a good idea, the crowds just haven’t been flocking to Milwaukee, so now might be the time to test whether people’s antipathy towards the Mile has to do with the race not being on it’s traditional date, or IndyCar racing in Wisconsin, full stop.
It’s a shame that the Tudor Series isn’t in the frame, as IndyCar/sports car double headers have worked well at places like Long Beach, beggars can’t be choosers, and if the IndyCar Series does return to Elkhart Lake, we shouldn’t complain about anything else.
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