Iowa Corn Indy 250: Parking has been tweaked

Iowa Speedway president Jerry Jauron called the traffic woes many fans faced at last year's Iowa Corn Indy 250 "a perfect storm." Now he and other track officials plan to offer solutions.

"We are at a much more improved position than we were a year ago," said Jauron, whose track will host Indy Racing League events Friday through Sunday.

Last year, several parking areas became untenable because of more than five inches of rain that besieged Newton within 48 hours of the race. Traffic bottlenecked because of what Jauron termed "miscommunication," and each issue begat another.

"We had so many things that could have worked perfectly that kind of dominoed," said Jauron, who said ticket sales have not been adversely affected by the devastating flooding the state has endured.

"When one thing went wrong, we had four or five different things – kind of a worst-case scenario. The backup plan can't even be put into effect."

This year, Jauron said, track officials have conducted at least a dozen meetings to discuss parking and traffic plans. More than $500,000 has been spent on improvements – with up to 95 percent of that cost going to create gravel lanes into more mature grassy parking areas. More at Des Moines Register