Those who know me, know my passion for Indycars. They also know of my love for Baltimore. I'm usually there at least once a month. So put the two together and you get one very happy race fan.
It seems there's plans in the works to try and bring Indycars to the Inner Harbor/Camden Yards Stadium area in Baltimore by 2011. By all accounts, both city officials, some neighbors and the promoters are all in agreement that it would be a great thing for the city. Now all it will take is selling the plan to Indycar.
The Baltimore race stands a far better chance of coming to reality than Paul Newman's attempt to bring Champ Car to Philadelphia a few year's ago. There was much opposition to the planned layout of the circuit, the improvements needed to the city streets were too great to be feasible and the promoters faced an indifferent city council that didn't even understand the difference between open-wheel race cars and NASCAR.
Some of the numbers thrown about for a Baltimore race are a little inflated - 150,000 attendance over three days is ambitious and the revenue it could generate for the city (claims run as high as $100 million in revenue when taking into account hotels, meals and shopping). My concern is that could be a recipe for dissapointment, such as what Edmonton in Canada is feeling these days with their Indycar race. The race there has been well-attended (truly coming close to the 100,000 mark over three days) but, even so, the promised tens of millions in revenue has not materialized. I think it would be best for the Indycar community and the promoters to pull back a little bit and make sure everyone involved sees more realistic numbers.
Me, I'm already standing in line to buy tickets!
(Credit goes to the Baltimore Sun for the track layout map)
1 comment:
City racing sucks - why not a race at the new track in New Jersey or in Virginia...both are good road courses?
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