Michigan IRL race is history, back to Phoenix
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Dave Lubowski, Green Bay
07/16/07 A reader adds, "Michigan International Speedway will not host an open-wheel race next season for the first time since the track opened in 1968."
Starting in 1993, I attended every CART race at MIS. They were some of the best superspeedway races ever seen. Unfortunately, Tony George's hammer has driven another nail in the coffin of Indy car racing. Mark Martinelli
07/16/07 This rumor is upgraded to 'fact' today. Michigan International Speedway will not host an open-wheel race next season for the first time since the track opened in 1968. Track officials confirmed today that they were unable to secure a suitable date with Indy Racing League officials. The IRL began racing at Michigan in 2002. It will stage the Firestone Indy 400 on Aug. 5. Indy Star
[Editor's Note: The IRL has had to deep-six more races than Champ Car. And if the IRL returns to Phoenix it will only be because Champ Car is now racing on the city streets there. Returning to the oval will be as big a loser as it was when they left.]
07/15/07 IRL officials confirmed that returning to Phoenix International Raceway in 2008 is being discussed, although a deal seems unlikely. Talks with International Speedway Corp., which owns the track, started with Homestead-Miami Speedway (another ISC-owned track) wanting its season-opening race earlier in March. To do that, the IRL needs a warm-weather venue to occupy a spot at the end of March. Brian Barnhart, the league's president of racing and competition, wants to see Indy cars racing at Phoenix, but he said returning to the region means facing the same crowded spring sports market that helped doom the 2005 event, the last for the IRL at the track. "The challenges we left behind remain," he said. Indy Star
The marriage between Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn and the Indy Racing League could be on the rocks.
While MIS appears on a tentative 2008 IndyCar Series schedule presented to promoters, the date offered to MIS for next year was not one that MIS officials were seeking.
The IRL has proposed an Aug. 3, 2008, race date, which once again would place it two weeks before the track's traditional second NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race. It also would place the Michigan open-wheel event just a month before the IndyCar Series race on Belle Isle in Detroit.
The IndyCar Series comes to Michigan this year on Aug. 5.
"That first weekend in August date that we took for this year was supposed to be a one-year deal," said Sammie Lukaskiewicz, director of communications for MIS. "We've talked to the IRL about the challenges operationally and promotionally of having two major races two weeks apart.
"We're just looking for a better date."
Lukaskiewicz said MIS has countered with other dates and ideas that the track hopes will appeal to the IRL. One of the ideas floated by MIS was to revive Twin 125-mile races. MIS last hosted Twin 125s (two 125-mile races on the same day or weekend) for Championship Auto Racing Teams in 1979.
Autoweek reported in an online report Thursday that another idea offered to the IRL was to have the IndyCar Series run in conjunction with a NASCAR Nextel Cup race weekend at MIS in June or August. The IndyCar Series and NASCAR have never paired up for a racing weekend.
PA SportsTicker Contributing Editor Bruce Martin, who has covered the IRL since the series began racing in 1996, reported on July 7 that the IndyCar Series would be returning to Phoenix in 2008 after a two-year absence from the series. Michigan, reported Martin, was expected to be dropped.
Lukaskiewicz, meanwhile, expects the IRL to announce its 2008 IndyCar Series schedule in early August. Last year, the IRL did not announce its 2007 MIS race date until Oct. 13.
"I think it's premature to say that we're losing our race," Lukaskiewicz said. "But it is reasonable to say that we're still in negotiations with the IRL." Citizen Patriot
07/09/07 After a two-year absence, the IndyCar series has proposed and discussed a return to Phoenix International Raceway in 2008 when the IndyCar schedule is announced later this season.
The season will begin the first weekend in March at Homestead-Miami Speedway, with Phoenix potentially regaining the second spot on the schedule.
However, the series will remain at 17 races because the annual race at Michigan International Speedway is expected to be dropped, marking the first time since the track opened in 1968 that a major open-wheel racing series, USAC, CART or IndyCar, will not compete at the famed two-mile oval. IndyCar left Phoenix after the 2005 race when 7,500 fans came out to the oval for a Saturday afternoon race, leading former ESPN reporter Marlo Klain to say, I had more people at my wedding. Yahoo! Sports
[Editor's Note: The IRL at Phoenix was a ghost town. How stupid can one be to return to such a situation? Things must be fairly desperate on 16th and Georgetown Road. Oh and 7,500 was a generous number.]