IndyCar to return to Phoenix (2nd Update)
 |
| NASCAR will race there 3-weeks prior. On April 2, 2016 you'll be able to shoot a cannon into the Phoenix grandstands and not hit anyone. |
Phoenix International Raceway and the Verizon IndyCar Series have a day and date – Saturday evening, April 2, 2016 – and a race distance – 250 miles – but not yet a final deal for the open-wheel tour to return to the Avondale oval for the first time since 2005.
Several important issues, including specific financial details, remain unresolved.
"This is the closest we've been (to a deal) in 10 years," PIR President Bryan Sperber told azcentral sports.
"We working hard on it but it’s not a done deal. There have been things we’ve worked hard on in the past that didn't (happen)."
If it happens, 250 miles would be the longest IndyCar race ever at PIR, and its first major night race since 2010.
The April 2 date would be three weeks after PIR’s March 13 CampingWorld.com 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. PIR would aggressively promote the IndyCar event to fans throughout the NASCAR weekend, including displays and, possibly, driver autograph sessions.
Any agreement likely is several weeks away, although IndyCar CEO Mark Miles has said he’d like to announce next year's schedule by this season’s end. Sperber plans to attend the championship finale, Aug. 30 in Sonoma, Calif., to gauge how much support team and series sponsors would commit to a PIR race. IndyCar doesn’t guarantee event promoters several million dollars in TV rights fees, as NASCAR does, so corporate ticket and hospitality sales and marketing promotions are key to an event’s financial success.
 |
| The Phoenix grandstands are much larger now since IndyCar last raced there. With a huge expanse of empty seats, potential sponsors will think IndyCar is a loser and fly the coup. |
The last time PIR and IndyCar had meaningful conversations, in 2012, the series' then-standard sanction fee of $1.5 million was considered too high to make a race financially viable. That was before Miles became CEO. Jay Frye, a former NASCAR Cup team executive, now is chief revenue officer for IndyCar’s parent company and has been the point man in negotiations with Sperber.
"I think there’s genuine enthusiasm on both sides," Frye told azcentral sports. "Phoenix is very important to the league, our partners and fans. We're making every attempt to explore every option to go back there."
PIR was built in 1964 with IndyCars in mind and has hosted 61 races. But PIR's event, and IndyCar in general, lost popularity because of the long CART-IRL split as the two groups competed to control the series. They reunified in 2008 but had long since been overtaken by NASCAR as America’s most popular type of motorsport.
IndyCar has already struck a deal to return to another traditional venue next year, Road America, in Elkhart Lake, Wis., absent from the schedule since 2007. And a new Labor Day street course race in Boston has been announced. But the status of four other races on this year’s calendar – Milwaukee, New Orleans, Pocono, Pa., and Fontana, Calif. – is uncertain.
Many drivers and team owners, including 16-time Indianapolis 500 winning car owner Roger Penske, have long called for a return to PIR.
“That’s a place we need to be," Penske said.
"This (PIR) is our track," said three-time Indy 500 and PIR winner Johnny Rutherford, the series’ pace car driver. "It was built for us." Michael Knight/AZCentral.com
08/10/15
 |
| Phoenix is owned by ISC i.e. NASCAR |
As far as Phoenix is concerned, I would love it from a personal position if IndyCar went back to PIR to race. My pals Gary Morton, Jack Darch and I flew out there for years when the IRL raced there and I would love to go back.
But nobody went to those races. To get a crowd count of 15,000 or 20,000 in a facility that can handle more than three times that total, they had to count the arms and legs on all the bodies. (I’d arrive home and my wife would say: ‘I saw you three guys on TV – again. It’s a good thing you go or there would be nobody in the grandstands.’ And I would say, ‘Ha, ha.’ )
When CART raced there, they had good crowds but when the IRL took over, zilch – or next to zilch. I would need the room for an academic thesis to explain why but it can be wrapped up like this: when CART was the sanctioning body, it helped with the promotion; when the IRL ran things, it left that up to the individual tracks and since Phoenix is owned by NASCAR, the last thing NASCAR is ever going to do is promote IndyCar.
That aside, there is a more important reason for IndyCar to stay well away from Phoenix: they have changed the track since the last time Indy cars raced there. It is now more of a pure oval than it used to be and the track, particularly through turns one and two, is more heavily banked than before.
The Indy cars will be rockets on that speedway and I can just see a scenario developing like the one at Las Vegas, which was a big accident waiting to happen.
There are other oval tracks where IndyCar can race. Go to them before signing on at Phoenix. Norris McDonald/Toronto Star
11/05/13 Former IndyCar President Randy Bernard said a 2014 race for Phoenix International Raceway’s 50th anniversary was “a must." CEO Mark Miles told azcentral sports in May talks with PIR were “a priority." But Miles never made the call, so the series will continue its nine-year Valley absence.
“I just didn’t see any possibility of fitting it in and don’t think it’s a good use of others’ time, or our time, if there isn’t an imminent prospect," said Miles, who condensed the 2014 schedule to end by Labor Day to avoid conflicting with football. “There really weren’t opportunities to add new venues. We felt like it was a year of transition, a year to consolidate where we are." AZCentral.com
[Editor's Note: Does IndyCar need to be adding any races that make them look bad – races where you can shoot a cannon into the grandstands and not hit anyone?]