A management shake-up at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has some in the motorsports industry thinking major changes could
be on the horizon at the fabled race venue—maybe as soon as next year.
Indy Racing League founder Tony George dropped a bombshell in December when he told an industry group that he would shut down
the open-wheel series if it didn’t break into the black soon.
A decision by a startup Formula One team to set up shop in Charlotte, N.C., is fueling debate over whether Indianapolis still
is the self-proclaimed "motorsports capital of the world."
Still stinging from the city’s loss of the giant Performance Racing Industry trade show in 2004, a group of local motorsports
business advocates is racing to put on a competing event.
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.
A group of motorsports journalists stood open-mouthed along the wall of the Texas Motor Speedway in 1999 as they watched 19-year-old
Sarah Fisher, fresh from the sprint car and dirt track circuits, zip past veteran open-wheel racers Buddy Lazier and Billy
Boat. What happened to Fisher over the next nine years is equally amazing–and mystifying–to those same motorsports experts
who watched her in Texas.
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.
City and state officials are igniting a souped-up effort to draw motorsports-related companies here, and they’re enlisting
Hoosier-born NASCAR champ Tony Stewart to help drive their message home.
Smoke coming from the Indy Racing League’s business model indicates it’s leaking oil. Two IRL teams recently folded and at least two more are in serious financial distress. Television ratings and race attendance is either flat or trailing last season.
