I thought St. Pete was older than that. My mistake.
St. Pete, like Dallas, can trace some lineage back to Trans-Am headliners in the 80’s and 90’s. But it was revived as an IndyCar event in the mid-2000’s. I’d say that one has actually become one of the marquee events on the calendar.
I’m with you, and would love to see them continue to race at Texas since they finally figured out the new surface after several years of trying. I have the same desire for a Chicagoland or Homestead type, with a cheese grater surface that would allow for good wheel-to-wheel without becoming a dangerous pack race. But there are some unfortunate realities when it comes to the economics and logistics of such events, not the least of which is who mostly owns those tracks now.
Somebody should sue.
Why CAN'T it be in Fort.Worth?
I don’t think @PeopleAreStrange was willing to put up the sanctioning fee. But they did good to honor his spirit by making sure they put Arlington in the race name.
Okay, why? Do I not get it for the same reasons I don't understand why Michael Jordan is a big deal in NASCAR?
For one, it simply makes the race a lot more financially viable if Penske Entertainment is able to bring in co-promoters capable and willing to spend big money - in this case, one of them being the most valuable sporting franchise in the world. Needless to say, there’s also a ton of brand identity and reach built up between them, so when they do cross-promote IndyCar will be able to reach a lot more potential fans/attendees than they would on their own.
They actively tried to keep racing at Texas in 2024! Hell, it was provisionally on the calendar until the NASCAR date got moved to the spring late in the process. I’m not sure any other oval stands out as something that could have an event put together in the near future, as unfortunate as that is.
You can run a full season for somewhere in the $1-1.2M range, so quite a bit cheaper than trying to find anything competitive in Xfinity or even Trucks again. But after how unceremonious her NASCAR exit was, I’m not super surprised she decided to switch things up in general. It just didn’t seem like it was going to work out there at all.
She has magnitudes more oval experience than everyone else she’ll be competing with, so I think she needs to do exceptionally well on those next year. I definitely wouldn’t expect her to compete right away on road and street courses. Most everyone else is coming in with at least a few years of single-seater experience and familiarity with the tracks. Even Chadwick took time to adjust when she moved over here, and she came from an actual single-seater background in Europe. So hopefully she’s given some grace.
Everything she’s done so far on paved road courses has been on the NASCAR ladder, plus a few spot starts in IMSA GT4 machinery through Ford. She’ll be behind the eight ball for sure, but she’ll now at least be in a series that offers multiple practice sessions each weekend. Making the transition to Trucks as COVID came and essentially wiped out the typical NASCAR race weekend only hurt her development. There should generally be fewer incidents for her to get caught up in too.
