Atherton: It Didn’t Work For Us To Be At Indianapolis Next Year

Following today’s reveal for the 2015 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship and Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge schedules, IMSA President/COO Scott Atherton addressed the removal of the Indianapolis and Kansas rounds, among other topics.

For Indianapolis, which had taken place the last weekend in July the last two years as part of a combined NASCAR/sports car "super weekend," various considerations led to the removal of the race for at least the 2015 season.

"At the top of our list was a mandate we gave ourselves to reduce the amount of racing on our calendar, and for a number of other business related reasons, it didn’t work for us to be at Indianapolis next year," Atherton told Sportscar365. [What did he really mean? You could shoot a cannon into the grandstands and not hit anyone – i.e. the events were a failure. Mark C.]

Atherton said one of the potential 2015 options mooted was joining the Grand Prix of Indianapolis IndyCar weekend, but that option was not utilized. Atherton did say he was optimistic of a return to Indianapolis in the "not distant future."

No additional IndyCar/TUDOR Championship weekends will occur in 2015 beyond the traditional rounds at Long Beach and Detroit.