Improvements planned for Edmonton

"I think that every year it gets tougher and tougher to come out with new and innovative events that occur on the site. But we're pretty creative, we think, and we have a tremendous amount of support," said organizer Tom Doerksen.

"We had great suggestions coming in from the fans, from sponsors, from the different levels of municipal and provincial governments, so there's no shortage of ideas. It's a matter of incorporating them, that are the right things to do for the fans that will keep them coming."

A significant change is moving the pit area adjacent to the start/finish straightaway and moving Grandstand B and the corporate suites further up into what was a 300-foot space.

Perhaps more importantly, this will open wider the foot-traffic lanes behind the grandstands. Grandstand B and the suites will also be angled slightly to allow better viewing of the pit area and of Turn 1. As well the north end family section above Turns 4, 5 and 6 is being expanded.

"In the first year, to a large extent it was a guessing game," Doerksen said of the logistics of site planning. "But fortunately our planning was to a level where we could accommodate (the volume of fans). But all of the areas that came to light – and there weren't really very many areas – they were solvable problems."