42 replies to this topic

[DanicaFan]

Well, bad news... The Edmonton Indy at the Edmonton Airport has been cancelled next year. The event will be off of the 2011 IndyCar schedule. They blame it on that the race lost $9.2 million dollars in it's first 2 years and $3 million in 2010.

They had signed a 3 year contract last year but that the league wanted the city to pay for the new track layout due to one of the runways being closed permanently. They said the cost to make the improvements for the new track layout were like $2-3 million dollars.

Here is a link to the full article..

http://www.edmontonj...r#ixzz14BEVwto1

[teejay]

A real shame - could they not book montreal instead maybe?

[jjcale]

Its a shame... that's one of the better races on the calendar IMO.

[LoPresti]

No Montreal please! Too much crap between the promoter and CART/ChampCar or what ever it was then to place any trust in that group again.

Mt Tremblant - that was a beauty! I would be happy to maybe even go to that one.

On Edmonton, we pretty much knew this was going to happen sooner then later - remember Honda had to step in to play as title sponsor last year to keep it going. What I cannot figure out is why have the race on the calendar if it was shaky to begin with?

Looks like Baltimore is having some trouble as well - which is a double header with ALMS.

http://www.baltimore...0,4383628.story

Edited by LoPresti, 03 November 2010 - 14:28.

[King Six]

Haha, that's awesome. They just carve out a race track from an airport, just like the good old days (Silverstone), or like Top Gear.

Oh wait...they're scrapping it, damn yous

(Ok, I'll admit, I came into this thread with a comment about how would Indy cope with losing such a unique track, a sarcastic comment in the sense that I thought this track is just another Oval, but it's a freakin' Airport)

Edited by King Six, 03 November 2010 - 14:38.

[Rob G]

I know of an airport in northeastern Ohio that would be good for Indy cars.

[PayasYouRace]

Sad that Indycar is losing a great airport track. I hope they find a good replacement. Mont Tremblant (as suggested above) would be good. The final Champcar season had a race there and it looked spectacular. What about Mosport? Is that still around?

[Dolph]

Well, bad news... The Edmonton Indy at the Edmonton Airport has been cancelled next year. The event will be off of the 2011 IndyCar schedule. They blame it on that the race lost $9.2 million dollars in it's first 2 years and $3 million in 2010.

They had signed a 3 year contract last year but that the league wanted the city to pay for the new track layout due to one of the runways being closed permanently. They said the cost to make the improvements for the new track layout were like $2-3 million dollars.

Here is a link to the full article..

http://www.edmontonj...r#ixzz14BEVwto1

How can a promoter suffer losses of 18.4 million $ and still organize a race for the third year. It just doesn't make any sense at all

[Villes Gilleneuve]

Sad that Indycar is losing a great airport track. I hope they find a good replacement. Mont Tremblant (as suggested above) would be good. The final Champcar season had a race there and it looked spectacular. What about Mosport? Is that still around?

Mosport is mostly endurance racing these days.

They already have an Indy in Toronto. It's barely making money.

psstt...no one cares anymore!

[Villes Gilleneuve]

How can a promoter suffer losses of 18.4 million $ and still organize a race for the third year. It just doesn't make any sense at all

That's Alberta sense. The provincial government was picking up the tab, but they've stopped throwing away money recently.

[loki]

Montreal can only have two large dates a year. One is F1 the other is NASCAR/Grand Am.

[chrisblades85]

How did Danica take the news?

[SlateGray]

http://www.mosport.com/home/home.asp

[whitewaterMkII]

It's pretty simple really, no one is making money with the irl. Not the teams, not the sponsors and even the paid drivers are being send packing
so the rent drivers can have their cars. (see Kanaan)

Except for IMS, who could run Smart cars on Memorial Day and still sell 100k tickets to the place fans.
Once again, the France family mafia saw he writing on the wall and were amongst the first rats off the boat.
They dropped the irl from every track they own, and right now if Bruton Smith dropped his tracks from their
schedule, the irl could pretty much pack it in.

[PayasYouRace]

Mosport is mostly endurance racing these days.

They already have an Indy in Toronto. It's barely making money.

psstt...no one cares anymore!

Ah so Mosport still exists.

My Canadian geography isn't particularly good. Is either Mosport or Mont Tremblant near Toronto.

I care.

http://www.mosport.com/home/home.asp

Ah thanks. Well if they can run prototypes then it would technically be possible to run Indycars.

Edited by PayasYouRace, 03 November 2010 - 22:59.

[Risil]

Ah thanks. Well if they can run prototypes then it would technically be possible to run Indycars.

Mosport wasn't safe enough to hold World Superbike racing in 1991. Judging by the abandonment of the ALMS race this year due to disintegrating crash barriers, it would appear basically unchanged.

[SKL]

Wish they'd replace it with Cleveland- love to go back there. Always great races there with so much run off and so many different lines...

[Dispenser89]

It was going to happen soon. Shame there's no backup, it seems, so there won't be a gap in the calendar.

Add me to the 'Cleveland would be nice' bandwagon.

Edited by Dispenser89, 04 November 2010 - 01:18.

[whitewaterMkII]

Wish they'd replace it with Cleveland- love to go back there. Always great races there with so much run off and so many different lines...

ahhh, cleveland...
CART, 1995
Whatta race, one of the best I've ever seen.
Crappy vid, but stick it out...

[loki]

Except for IMS, who could run Smart cars on Memorial Day and still sell 100k tickets to the place fans.
Once again, the France family mafia saw he writing on the wall and were amongst the first rats off the boat.
They dropped the irl from every track they own, and right now if Bruton Smith dropped his tracks from their
schedule, the irl could pretty much pack it in.

SMI has just doubled down on the possible growth of Indycar by agreeing to actually pay sanctioning fees. Loudon for sure and if they get a title sponsor the season finale at Las Vegas. SMI needs more than just stock car racing to keep those tracks busy.

[teejay]

Bring back Cleveland!

[Ali_G]

Add me to the Cleveland bangwaggon.

The 99 race was epic.

[PayasYouRace]

Of course. Cleveland would be great. That was the first Indycar race I ever saw. 1996 when Gil de Ferran won.

I was thinking they'd probably want to have another Canadian race but Cleveland should be brought back anyway.

[LoPresti]

Of course. Cleveland would be great. That was the first Indycar race I ever saw. 1996 when Gil de Ferran won.

I was thinking they'd probably want to have another Canadian race but Cleveland should be brought back anyway.

I get the feeling that if Baltimore and Edmonton are out that the league will run 2 heat races in Milwakee and 2 heat races in Texas (instead of 1 full race at each location) and then claim no loss to the calendar and a an addition of 2 new ovals to the schedule.

Funny as that sounds, it's currently being kicked around.

As far as Cleveland is concerned - doubt it. Honda is already paying for MidOhio and Cleveland has yet to come up with a sponsor the last two times the league gave them an opportunity to do so. Obviously "switching" from one course to another is pointless if you do not have a sponsor to pick up the tab.

Furthermore many cities are becoming far more frugal in their spending so the so called "limping back to the barn" last resort that ChampCar utilized to bring cash into the series i.e. bringing in more street racing, will be far more difficult to develop.

Also I made a comment in another thread that a large press conference was going to be made about 1 week ago. Turns out that was Verizon and that the news was not as big as expected - for what reason I have no idea but I speculate that the contribution turned out to be less then ICS management expected.

[PayasYouRace]

I get the feeling that if Baltimore and Edmonton are out that the league will run 2 heat races in Milwakee and 2 heat races in Texas (instead of 1 full race at each location) and then claim no loss to the calendar and a an addition of 2 new ovals to the schedule.

Texas is going to be 2 races next year. At least that's how it was when the calendar was announced.

Edit: Yep http://www.indycar.c...indycar-series/

It's the Firestone Twin 275s

Edited by PayasYouRace, 04 November 2010 - 14:29.

[Villes Gilleneuve]

Mosport wasn't safe enough to hold World Superbike racing in 1991. Judging by the abandonment of the ALMS race this year due to disintegrating crash barriers, it would appear basically unchanged.

The track has Panoz syndrome, it's been basically let go over the years, and will likely be housing subdivisions soon.

[Villes Gilleneuve]

Ah so Mosport still exists.

My Canadian geography isn't particularly good. Is either Mosport or Mont Tremblant near Toronto.

I care.

Mosport is near Toronto, Tremblant is closest to Montreal.

No one cares about Indy cars anymore. More people from Toronto go to Montreal for F1 than watch Indy in Toronto.

[OfficeLinebacker]

I know of an airport in northeastern Ohio that would be good for Indy cars.

Looks like others in this thread have picked up on the sentiment that Burke Lakefront airport would make a great venue for an open wheel race. I love airports and I think there should be at least two on the schedule. And Road America, too.

[PayasYouRace]

Mosport is near Toronto, Tremblant is closest to Montreal.

OK cheers.

[Alfisti]

Mosport is a SENSATIONAL little track, sort of a mini Bathurst. But you go there wondering if today will be the day a big one happens, it's ripe for a huge accident.

[LoPresti]

Wow!

Not a very enlightening write up.

Story Here

That's some $16 million in public funds to date -- to subsidize an international pro sports event -- with Octane holding out its hand for $10.2 million more from the city.

And what exactly did we, the public, get for our money?

The Indy Racing League won't allow the release of attendance figures, so it's impossible to know how many people actually bought tickets to this year's event. But Coun. Kim Krushell says attendance was down, and few were tourists.

"Ticket sales have been declining and they were down again, obviously, this year.

"Our citizens weren't buying tickets, and tourists weren't buying tickets either," says Krushell.

"From what I could see, the tickets were from the region and from Edmonton, not international."

[Slyder]

Simple solution: go to Mont-Tremblant

Or go to Cleveland.

HELLO CLEVELAND!!!

"Wait, I thought there was a race going on here..."

Edited by Slyder, 05 November 2010 - 03:27.

[racer-fan]

Champ Car in Edmonton was very successful at least the first couple of years, I was there.

The first year was rainy and very muddy on the site but it was fun and lots of people.

The second year was really really hot and there was almost no shade and it was packed. The firemen had sprinklers strategically placed to cool people down.

The racing was good but I did think twice about going back.

The Mtl promoter Dumontier took over promotion of the Indy race in Edmonton but obviously not successfully.

[Villes Gilleneuve]

Mosport is a SENSATIONAL little track, sort of a mini Bathurst. But you go there wondering if today will be the day a big one happens, it's ripe for a huge accident.

There have been many killed at Mosport. Winkelhock was killed there.

[Villes Gilleneuve]

Simple solution: go to Mont-Tremblant

More likely Trois-Rivieres might pick this up as a street race.

They need to scrap indy and bring back Can-am.

[PayasYouRace]

Mosport is a SENSATIONAL little track, sort of a mini Bathurst. But you go there wondering if today will be the day a big one happens, it's ripe for a huge accident.

I remember it well from Grand Prix Legends PC game. But of course that's based on 1967 so I wasn't sure if the track was still operational.

[Ross Stonefeld]

It hasn't changed at all, it doesn't even look like it's been repaved...

[PayasYouRace]

It hasn't changed at all, it doesn't even look like it's been repaved...

If that's the case, then best to stay away.

[pingu666]

alms go there , could do another double header?

[Villes Gilleneuve]

It hasn't changed at all, it doesn't even look like it's been repaved...

It has been repaved to FIA standards, but it's a track within hills and valleys, and really sub-standard guard rails. It's too easy to flip over a guard rail and end up down a valley. This is how Manfred Winkelhock was killed in a 962 Porsche in '85.

They only recently added a go kart track, but the garages and pits are 60s-era, and most grandstands have been torn down because they were falling apart. Panoz owns the track.


North American tracks are a joke compared to Europe. It's all about a quick buck here.

[Slyder]

It has been repaved to FIA standards, but it's a track within hills and valleys, and really sub-standard guard rails. It's too easy to flip over a guard rail and end up down a valley. This is how Manfred Winkelhock was killed in a 962 Porsche in '85.

They only recently added a go kart track, but the garages and pits are 60s-era, and most grandstands have been torn down because they were falling apart. Panoz owns the track.


North American tracks are a joke compared to Europe. It's all about a quick buck here.

Considering how laughably sterilized European tracks are, I'll take a dangerous North American track over an European one any time.

[Xpat]

It has been repaved to FIA standards, but it's a track within hills and valleys, and really sub-standard guard rails. It's too easy to flip over a guard rail and end up down a valley. This is how Manfred Winkelhock was killed in a 962 Porsche in '85.

They only recently added a go kart track, but the garages and pits are 60s-era, and most grandstands have been torn down because they were falling apart. Panoz owns the track.


North American tracks are a joke compared to Europe. It's all about a quick buck here.

If an event doesn't make money then the event will cease being an event.

[j madra]

Not dead yet...

http://www.edmontonj...3730/story.html