Baltimore GP close to landing 7-figure title sponsor

Baltimore Grand Prix IndyCar Event promoter Jay Davidson is confident his team can hook the right sponsors. Davidson, the president of Baltimore Racing Development, said the group is "negotiating hard with three different companies, and one of those companies will wind up being our title sponsor," he told the Baltimore Sun.

Davidson said legal agreements preclude him from naming the companies, but two are based in Maryland and one is from the surrounding region. He said he expects to announce a title sponsor in the next few weeks who will pay "in the low seven figures."

Baltimore Racing Development is trying to line up a separate sponsor for the American Le Mans Series race planned for the day before the Indy race.

Once the main sponsors have been nailed down, Davidson says, the group intends to sell as many as 20 smaller sponsorships for price tags ranging from $25,000 to $250,000.

More than 6,000 people have signed up to be alerted when tickets go on sale, Davidson said. He expects each to buy an average of 2.5 tickets.

Track designer Martyn Thake says planners are hashing out the final layout for seating this week. About 45,000 grand seats will ring the 2-mile course, in addition to about 70 skyboxes, ground-level boxes and tents, he said.