The Sports Car Club of America is holding their annual National Championship Runoffs on hallowed ground this year: Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They've already received 1000 entries—the previous Runoffs attendance record was 709 cars in 2004.
The Runoffs will invade Indianapolis Motor Speedway on September 29-October 1. We'll be there with a booth, T-shirts and lots of magazines. Come say hello …
I remember going to the Indy 500 when that was it. One race - nothing else.
It was Moses and holy ground there. Glad to see them branching out more.
Yeah, cool to see the Runoffs visiting these bucket list tracks.
Holy Crap, now they definitely will have a Paddock issue.
^^^ they may not. The infield at IMS is absolutely massive. I can see them being able to accommodate 1000 cars pretty easily----- as long as there isn't other construction going on at the track. (there always seems to be something getting built, or renovated there)
The area near turn 3 and 4 normally goes unused-- unless there is a concert. They could probably paddock a bunch of cars there.
It's great to see such a strong showing! Who doesn't want to run at Indy?
Turn 4 oval infield is now part of the road course.
I do think they will definitely have a paddock issue.
This is my rough estimate of how many entries can fit where - this requires that all haulers be removed from the grounds and moved to the North 40 after unloading:
Gasoline Alley and F1 Garages: 100 entries Paved Lot South of Gasoline Alley: 60 entries Small Paved Lot Southeast of Gasoline alley: 40 entries Hauler/RV lot: 120 entries Random weird lots behind Tower Terrace: 200 entries Under Tower Terrace: 50 entries So total paved: 570 entries (I'm not going to include the museum parking because using it would be odd)
So either they will need to do shifts - that 570 is conveniently about half of the entries or they will have to paddock cars on the grass inside oval turn 3. There's a few issues with using the grass - it is long and it can get wet paddocking hundreds of cars there for days at a time would be a major issue if it rained. Secondly, there is no way for these paddock spaces to directly access pit lane without crossing or driving on the track. Secondly I don't see the Turn 3 grass accommodating more than a few hundred entries, not the ~430 that are needed. Once you take into account the viewing mounds and that you need lanes to get in and out (which aren't needed during the Indy 500), there's not really that much space left in Turn 3. They can't paddock cars on the golf course.
Another option would be paddock cars across 16th street in the Main Lot and block the road and have them go through the South Chute Tunnel to access the track. This would be a huge logistical nightmare, but at least it's paved.
You could also paddock a few dozen cars in the handicapped and vendor parking north of the North Chute. That would have fairly unfettered access to the track through the North Tunnel but like Turn 3, would not provide direct access to pit lane without driving around or across the track.
We'll see how they pull it off.
I don't see any way they can do it without doing shifts where certain classes are kept out of paddock.
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