No MIS race for the IRL in 2007
"We anticipate closing out our schedule by the end of the week," IRL spokesperson Amy Konrath said on Monday. "We are currently at 14 races and plan to be at 17. Talks with MIS continue."
"Our understanding all summer long from the IRL was that we had a July 22 date," Curtis said. "That move back one week was predicated by the move of the (NASCAR) Brickyard 400 race to July 29, and the last Sunday in July has traditionally been the IRL date at Michigan. We wanted to go a week earlier to accommodate our fans who in the past have gone to both races."
A few weeks ago, however, the IRL threw Curtis and his staff a little curveball. The IRL asked MIS to move its race back to Aug. 5 in 2007. We were kind of surprised when the IRL came to us a couple of weeks ago and asked if we would be willing to move to an Aug. 5 date," Curtis said. "They came to us with all of their reasons why, and they were all very good, very understandable reasons. And we kind of gave them some reasons why we'd like to keep it in July. We agreed at that time to just continue the dialogue and see what we could to do work things out, and that's kind of where we're at right now."
There are several reasons a move to Aug. 5 would not be good for MIS. The second of the two Nextel Cup races at MIS is scheduled for Aug. 19, just two weeks after the proposed date. And the return of the IRL to Belle Isle on Sept. 2 would mean two IRL events would be held in the same market in a span of four weeks.
09/29/06 We are bumping this rumor up to 'strong' today as the word is spreading that the IRL cannot sell tickets in the Michigan market as it is, let alone do it for two events now that Belle Isle is official. Yet another one of Roger Penske's original oval tracks that no longer holds an open wheel race. We still recall the day in the Nazareth press room whereby Roger chastised CART for dropping its race at Nazareth and said he considered it a kick in his teeth. Now, after Fontana, Michigan, and Nazareth (3 former Penske tracks) have been dumped by the IRL we wonder if Roger still views it as a kick in his teeth? Why did Roger invest so much effort in resurrecting Belle Isle when he could have spent that effort at MIS, an ISC track that he and his son Greg are still major stockholders? In essence, the IRL's move away from ovals and towards street and road courses justifies CART's original business plan. The creation of the IRL has set the sport of Indy Car racing back over 10 years as it morphs into what CART already was in 1995. Amazing. Mark C.
09/29/06 The Indy Racing League's trip to Daytona Beach, Fla., this week might prove to have been beneficial to completing the league's 2007 schedule.
Not only did the Indy cars test on a road course at Daytona International Speedway. League officials met with their counterparts at International Speedway Corp., which has its office across the street from the track.
The IRL is trying to clean up a mess created by an inability to secure a race in Montreal next year on Aug. 5. The backup plan was to run a race on that date at the Honda-preferred Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, but the track is unavailable due to a motorcycle event.
That led IRL officials to ask ISC-owned Michigan International Speedway to accept a move to Aug. 5. The problem was, MIS had already sent out ticket renewal forms indicating the race would be July 22, the date the IRL promised track officials this summer.
The prospect of an Aug. 5 race is not good for MIS on several levels, starting with a NASCAR Nextel Cup race there Aug. 19. Plus, Detroit officials will announce today that a race on the Belle Isle street course adjacent to downtown will be held Sept. 2.
That would give the market two IRL races in the span of four weeks.
Also, MIS would not be able to pair the IRL with ARCA because the stock-car series will be racing that weekend with NASCAR at Pocono (Pa.) International Raceway.
New MIS president Roger Curtis called the turn of events "not attractive at all."
IRL spokesman John Griffin said league officials feel bad about the situation and have vowed that MIS hosting an August IRL race would be "a one-year situation."
IRL contracts have not been signed by Mid-Ohio or Michigan. Indy Star
[Editor's Note: First, the IRL won't be racing in Montreal, which we told you in this rumor. Second, this excuse for not holding the MIS race may be a way for the IRL to gently ease out of MIS and its massively empty grandstands. With Belle Isle being announced today, MIS might be history for open wheel racing.]