IRL was right not to include more NASCAR ovals
"I'm extremely disappointed for our fans, who have given us some real positive feedback about the possible return of IndyCar racing to New Hampshire Motor Speedway," Gappens said in the statement. "In fact, in a recent poll on nhms.com, nearly 80-percent of our fans said they wanted to see this exciting form of motorsports return. That's a strong endorsement, and I don't understand the decision not to include our facility on next year's schedule.
"I think it's a slap in the face to our chairman Bruton Smith and to our company who have been very supportive of the Indy Racing League since its inception, and to [former NHMS owner] Bob Bahre, who was first to agree to go with them when they split off [from CART in 1995].
"I sat in a meeting and watched Bruton ask them for a race here, which they seemed extremely interested in doing, pending scheduling conflicts with Japan. In addition, in that same meeting, they asked him to host the series finale in Las Vegas, which he agreed to and even offered the speedway and financial support to do it this year. Having attended that meeting in early June, it's hard to believe that neither is on the new schedule.
"The feedback that has been conveyed to me is that they don't want to add an additional race to the schedule in respect to the cost to the teams. However, I would think that an additional purse and the strength of adding the seventh largest media market in the country would offset those costs and concerns. I think this market and facility have a lot to offer the team and series sponsors.
"I thought that [Texas Motor Speedway general manager] Eddie Gossage, who on behalf of Speedway Motorsports, made an excellent proposal to the league, which included Las Vegas and New Hampshire. I don't want to burn any bridges, but I am upset to be excluded. I am a big fan of open-wheel racing, strongly admire what the Hulman-George family has done for this sport and promise that we would have worked hard to promote a race in this market. They know they would get an excellent effort from our team here at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. History has proven that this venue provided exciting races. Now, we'll see what happens down the road."
AutoRacing1.com's position all along was that the IRL should never race at a race track where the number of grandstands seats were built to accommodate NASCAR races when the IRL can only fill 25% or less. The empty seats would make (and have in the past made) the IndyCar series look like complete losers. What sponsor wants to get involved with a series that looks like a loser? Open wheel racing has failed in these markets in the past and they will fail in the future unless huge sums of money are spent in the market to educate and entice potential new fans. Apparently the IRL went through a similar thought process and came to the same conclusion.