![]() INDIANAPOLIS - On Saturday morning, roughly 24 hours before the start of the 2021 Indianapolis 500, an impromptu meeting of Indy's most exclusive club took place as the drivers meeting of this year's 33 competitors was being adjourned.Ī.J. Helio Castroneves' fourth Indianapolis 500 win is one for the aged The two series merged three years ago under the Ind圜ar standard but the circuit still lags far behind NASCAR racing in popularity, TV exposure and revenue.You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser ![]() Ind圜ar is trying to rebound from years of low TV ratings and diminished fan interest due to a split in open wheel racing that led to two competing leagues - Champ Car and Ind圜ar series. “It’s unfortunate that in a time when Ind圜ar is experiencing momentum and growth, the city would want to miss out on the opportunity to be part of it,” said the IRL said in a statement. The Toronto Indy - now the lone Canadian stop on the Ind圜ar schedule - runs July 10, and the Mid-Ohio race is set for Aug. The IRL, the umbrella sanctioning body for Ind圜ar, said in a release it will seek to find a replacement for the July 24 event, which currently leaves Ind圜ar with a month-long gap between races at the height of the summer holiday season. Rosen noted that while the track improvements would have been a one-time cost, the event was going to have to find a new location anyway after the three-year deal ended because by then both runways would close. “The city’s final decision has made it impossible for us - as professional and experienced motorsports promoters - to offer an event complying with our high quality standards.” ![]() “Until the last minute, we hoped that the city would agree with our legitimate request to provide us a site equivalent to the one the previous promoters have worked with and without having our group investing in groundworks,” Octane president Francois Dumontier said in a statement. The city balked and the deadline passed, leading to Wednesday’s announcement. ![]() 29 deadline to pony up in order for Octane to launch a ticket drive. Octane wanted the city to pay the cost and gave the city an Oct. The airport was able to stay open during previous Ind圜ar events by keeping one runway open for air traffic and letting the cars race on the other.īut one of the two runways closed for good late this summer, meaning that for the airport to stay open during future Ind圜ar events, the closed-down runway needed to be retrofitted at an estimated of cost of $3 million to handle the race cars. More and more air traffic was to be shifted over time to the much-larger Edmonton International Airport south of the city. The races had been run on a 1.96-mile temporary circuit at airport, located just north of downtown.Ĭity council, however, voted last year to close the airport in stages to make room for residential and business development. The three-year deal was announced in late July at the Edmonton Indy event, with Octane taking over the costs and the city promising to kick in $5.5 million over three years in sponsorship money.īut in the end it was the city’s downtown City Centre Airport that killed the event. The city had run the event through an arm’s-length group called Edmonton Northlands, but three months ago it signed a new deal with Montreal’s Octane Management, a private operator that also runs the Formula One event in Montreal. The events brought international racing names like Danica Patrick, Dario Franchitti and Toronto’s Paul Tracy to Edmonton, but it also delivered crushing financial losses to the city totalling an estimated $12 million over the last three years alone. The decision waves the checkered flag on a six-year run of mid-summer open-wheel racing in the Alberta capital - the first three years with the old Champ Car series and the last three with Ind圜ar. We just couldn’t make the money work,” Lorna Rosen, the city’s chief financial officer, told a news conference at City Hall. “It’s a business decision at the end of the day, both for them and for us, and we couldn’t make the money work. EDMONTON - The annual Ind圜ar auto race in Edmonton was shunted into history Wednesday after the city and the event sponsor couldn’t agree on who should pay for a $3-million track retrofit.
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