Indianapolis Motor Speedway to host Nationwide Series event in 2012 – NASCAR news
Indianapolis Motor Speedway will host a Nationwide Series race in the 2012 NASCAR season.
The race will be held to increase the interest of fans with a two-race weekend including the Sprint Cup Series race, Brickyard 400.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation president and chief executive officer Jeff Belskus said, “We're going to triple our hours of track activity here. That will be good for the fans. It will be good for the sponsors. We're billing it as a Super Weekend
in motorsports. To come here and see all the different types of competition, whether it is on the road course or on the oval, it will be great for our fans, it will be good for the sponsors. It's going to be a fun weekend.”
The IMS track officials have confirmed the deal with their announcement of hosting the Nationwide Series event in the 2012 schedule. The date decided for the event is July 28, 2012.
The key reason to move the event was that the Sprint Cup Series race, Brickyard 400 has seen a significant drop in fan attendance in last few seasons and the worst fan attendance was seen in the 2009 event.
The event will be moved from its previous venue, Indianapolis Raceway Park Lucas Oil Raceway. The new venue is bigger and is spread over 2.5 miles compared to a rather small circuit where it has been taking place since 1982.
Along with the Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series race hosting, Indianapolis Motor Speedway has also managed another race at the circuit. The new addition to the track’s racing calendar is a three-hour race of Grand-Am Series, which is scheduled a day
earlier than the NASCAR weekend.
The Grand-Am Series race will take place on the track’s available road course. It has also conducted an American event on the Formula 1 season calendar between 2000 and 2007.
During 2009, the Grand-Am series tested both tracks which hosted MotoGP and Formula 1 races considering the road course category. After all testing and considerations, the series organiser decided to select IMS for their endurance event.
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