Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials are in talks to move their Hall of Fame Museum from the interior of the oval to a spot
just outside the south end of the track, an area that could also house a new Speedway hotel.
Fans walking into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the First MotoGP race there Sept. 14 likely won’t recognize the place. Sponsor ads will hang on the inside walls of the track. There will be a host of companies in the hospitality area–including Yamaha, Kawasaki, Ducati and Repsol–that have never set foot inside the Speedway’s grounds. The motorcycle-specific nature of the Red Bull Indianapolis GP will permeate every facet of the event and affects all elements of the host city’s planning.
In the end, the catastrophic sponsorship shift from open-wheel racing to NASCAR became too much to ignore, driving the long-divided
sides of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League back into a unified series.
Shows provided by IMS Productions, the video production arm of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, are among the top draws for Joost, a high-profile Internet provider of television content launched last October.
Speedway officials are in discussions
to bring an airplane race to Indianapolis. The Red Bull Air Race World Series is a 5-year-old airplane race circuit that combines
the intrigue of a high-wire circus
act, thrills of an alpine ski race, and cutting-edge technology of Formula One auto racing.
Bringing MotoGP–the world’s highest level of motorcycle racing–to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway could easily draw more
than 150,000 spectators and net an eight-figure windfall for track owner Tony George.
IMS Productions, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s video production arm, has agreed to be one of the primary content providers
for The Venice Project, a collaboration of big-name Internet entrepreneurs intent on shaking up the television industry by
launching a 30-plus-channel, TV-like network online.
