2024 Indycar Schedule Thread

FLRacingFan said:
I wonder if it’s time to worry about Iowa now that Cup is headed there. It’ll probably be a summer race not too far away from the IndyCar weekend, and I think there’s been a noticeable downtick at Gateway since Cup went there too…
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At the end of the day, NASCAR owns the track. All the equity Indycar might be able to build can be taken from them in an instant, and in fact if Hy-Vee and NASCAR had discussions about what an agreement between those two entities for promotion and activation might resemble, would it in any way surprise you? There's a reason I've been harping on and on about track rentals not being the solution for Indycar and that is why.
 
It would be great if Penske still had Fontana and Michigan in his portfolio, but alas.

The idea that the guy who’s a) been attending races at IMS for over 70 years, over 50 of which were as an owner, and b) eventually spent a couple hundred million to buy it, doesn’t like ovals or doesn’t think they’re a vital part of IndyCar’s formula has never made a lick of sense. It’s just the unfortunate realities of the sport right now. There are finite dates and dollars to go around and IndyCar is just at mercy of too many other players right now, whether that be TV partners or track ownership.
 
Speedbowl14 said:
Iowa has been struggling for years now.
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It’s probably been as strong as ever since Penske and HyVee took on the risk as promoters the past two years. It’s certainly no sure thing now though. With as much money as they put into the event they need to fill the grandstands and especially all those massive temporary suites they bring in. It wouldn’t take much to make it non viable.

Renewals started last week and supposedly they were much lower than this year’s prices and I think even lower than 2022’s. Wouldn’t surprise me if they just caught wind of this (another late development on NASCAR’s side) and tried to lock in as many people as possible before this went public.
 
FLRacingFan said:
It would be great if Penske still had Fontana and Michigan in his portfolio, but alas.

The idea that the guy who’s a) been attending races at IMS for over 70 years, over 50 of which were as an owner, and b) eventually spent a couple hundred million to buy it, doesn’t like ovals or doesn’t think they’re a vital part of IndyCar’s formula has never made a lick of sense. It’s just the unfortunate realities of the sport right now. There are finite dates and dollars to go around and IndyCar is just at mercy of too many other players right now, whether that be TV partners or track ownership.
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As I said already on the page before, it's an argument that has been fabricated to justify a position. If your position is that Indycar should be full of Americans from short track racing roots, then the idea that there is some sort of conspiracy which exists to keep the thing you want from happening is much more attractive to you than it would be to go through and understand the nuanced reasons as to why Indycar is what it is. If however there is no conspiracy or desire from on high to eliminate oval racing, then that means that the structure of Indycar as it is today has happened organically as a result of market changes, incentive structures, etc and thus that your vision of what Indycar should be is antiquated and obsolete. How many people want to raise their hands and say, "Yes, I want to know that my ideas are 60 years behind the curve"?
 
Speedbowl14 said:
Iowa has been struggling for years now.
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Iowa can be solvent simply by putting a Cup race there. That alone changes the economics enough to make the place worthwhile. The issue NASCAR has is that their Cup sponsors by and large don't care if they are in Iowa. Not enough people living there, the people who live there have a lower-than-national-median household and per capita income, they lag behind the national averages for broadband access and internet use, they have a larger population of elderly than the national average, etc etc etc.

In a slightly different business model, Iowa is a place that could totally be sustained by running Truck/Xfinity/Indycar, but NASCAR has moved away from that and is principally interested these days in media rights. That would seem to be a benefit to Iowa conceptually since it means tracks can be solvent and sustainable without selling a single ticket to a fan, but there are consequences to that also in terms of what TV partners and advertisers are seeking.
 
virtualbalboa said:
Iowa can be solvent simply by putting a Cup race there. That alone changes the economics enough to make the place worthwhile. The issue NASCAR has is that their Cup sponsors by and large don't care if they are in Iowa. Not enough people living there, the people who live there have a lower-than-national-median household and per capita income, they lag behind the national averages for broadband access and internet use, they have a larger population of elderly than the national average, etc etc etc.

In a slightly different business model, Iowa is a place that could totally be sustained by running Truck/Xfinity/Indycar, but NASCAR has moved away from that and is principally interested these days in media rights. That would seem to be a benefit to Iowa conceptually since it means tracks can be solvent and sustainable without selling a single ticket to a fan, but there are consequences to that also in terms of what TV partners and advertisers are seeking.
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If that were the case, there'd of been a Cup race there years ago. Once NASCAR started moving around schedules, Iowa was one of the top picks for an event by the fans. Now here we are... 5 years after the schedule shakeups began, Iowa is only getting a race because Montreal couldn't do it (as all the rumors point to). I don't see it. The track was rumored to close after the pandemic. Iowa, for whatever reason, isn't getting the love from NASCAR it needs to be successful. One Cup date isn't going to change my opinion. Let's see where the track is at 3-5 years down the road.
 
Speedbowl14 said:
If that were the case, there'd of been a Cup race there years ago. Once NASCAR started moving around schedules, Iowa was one of the top picks for an event by the fans. Now here we are... 5 years after the schedule shakeups began, Iowa is only getting a race because Montreal couldn't do it (as all the rumors point to). I don't see it. The track was rumored to close after the pandemic. Iowa, for whatever reason, isn't getting the love from NASCAR it needs to be successful. One Cup date isn't going to change my opinion. Let's see where the track is at 3-5 years down the road.
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NASCAR isn't concerned with the solvency of Iowa Speedway. NASCAR is concerned with media rights. Trying to boost the value of their media rights is why they ran the Chicago Street Race and why the Busch Clash is held inside of the LA Coliseum. Iowa is, however, a great piece of insurance in that they can run races there at basically no cost to themselves and pay themselves the TV money should they not get someone else like Montreal on board.

Here's a thought for you: What if Indycar's races at Gateway, Iowa, and Milwaukee were encouraged or at least assisted in some way by NASCAR because NASCAR wants Roger to take the risk of establishing if fans might come out to those venues for Cup events? Because tracks will ditch Indycar in a second to get the 65% or whatever it is of the event TV money should it be made available to them.
 
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