Pocono Raceway president and CEO Brandon Igdalsky expects good crowd for IndyCar race
BRANDON IGDALSKY: The fans are really excited. A lot of people around here remember Pocono before INDYCAR and we are seeing that with a lot of fans that are buying tickets and what they are telling us when they call. They are saying my dad took me and now I'm bringing my dad and my kids.
There's definitely excitement and a lot of people that grew up here in the Poconos and Northeast Pennsylvania; that's what they remember about Pocono Raceway starting off when they were kids. The staff here, some have been here for over 24 years so they remember what it's like and we have a lot of new people that have no idea. It's going to be an exciting weekend for the fans and the staff and everybody in between.
Q. In regards to how things got going, what did it take to get IndyCars coming back to Pocono.
BRANDON IGDALSKY: It literally took me being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was in South Florida about a year ago for the St. Petersburg event, and I had not been to an IndyCar race in a long time and I was nearby and I gave the IndyCar folks a call and said, Hey, I'm going to be in town, can you help me out with some tickets. And that was it.
I came over, some media members introduced me to (former CEO) Randy (Bernard). We started chatting, and you know, it was kind of very informal at the time, but eight months later we were going to contract and two months later after that we were making the announcement.
It wasn't too hard once we committed to doing it. We put some time and energy last summer into doing a big fan study here locally. We hired a company that went out and talked to IndyCar fans and NASCAR fans and just motorsports fans in general, as well as non?motorsports fans and we were pretty surprised by the overwhelming support that it looked like on paper we would have for the event.
And as we are getting closer to the event, we are seeing the fruits of those labors come to fruition and we are excited by the crowd we are going to have here and obviously Fourth of July weekend and a big weekend here in the Pocono Mountains. It's a big vacation destination, and we have a lot of people that come into the area this week, so it's just one more thing for them to do on their vacation to the Poconos.