Boston IndyCar race cancelled

All I have to say is: Dammit. I was looking forward to this race, too.

Fair use quote:

The Boston Globe said: Promoters of an IndyCar race in the Seaport this September are peeling out of Boston and will not race in the city. “The relationship between us and the city is not working,” said John Casey, president of what had been called the Grand Prix of Boston, in a Globe interview Friday. “The relationship is untenable.” The city’s inaugural IndyCar race had been scheduled for Labor Day weekend, on a 2.2-mile temporary street course around the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Promoters last May signed an agreement with Mayor Martin J. Walsh to hold the race in 2016, then annually for up to four more years. Instead, the promoters will turn to Plan B and try to hold a Labor Day race in a backup city in the Northeast, Casey said. The promoters have had contact with two other cities, he said, one of which is in New England. “They are both willing to do it without the headaches of Boston,” he said, declining to name the cities. Boston is 0-2 recently on new, attention-grabbing sporting events, with the demise of the race coming less than a year after Boston’s bid for the 2024 Olympics collapsed. Opponents on Friday cheered the end of the Grand Prix. “We’re grateful that the public process finally worked, that the people of Boston will be spared the damage and destruction of our streets and that the people in South Boston and the Seaport. . . will be able to live their lives without the disruption this race portended,” said Larry Bishoff, cochairman of the Coalition Against IndyCar Boston, in a statement. “From the beginning, this was the wrong place and time for this event.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/04/29/indycar-race-scratched-for-seaport/bGK50NRCat3ldIjYKL7D1J/story.html

So I guess the question now is what NE US city would want an Indy car race on short notice?

I think that was code for "we need to find a proper track that will put up with us on short order or this event is kaput"

IIRC, when Indy does tracks, they use ovals, not road courses. Maybe they should try to split the difference and go to Watkins's Glenn?

In reply to HappyAndy:

They race at Sonoma, Barber, Road America, and Mid-Ohio this season. Those are proper road courses. They used to go to the Glen - I imagine with the recent re-pave will entertain it again in 2017.

the first I hear is when it's cancelled. I would prefer a city GP, but Watkins is only an hour away.

I heard they cancelled the Boston event because the locals insisted on under inflating the tires.

HappyAndy wrote: So I guess the question now is what NE US city would want an Indy car race on short notice? I think that was code for "we need to find a proper track that will put up with us on short order or this event is kaput" IIRC, when Indy does tracks, they use ovals, not road courses. Maybe they should try to split the difference and go to Watkins's Glenn?

I can see them doing a race in Providence, RI. They usually shut down streets in the summer during weekends for the "water fire" thing they do (basically a boat goes down a canal and lights torches, and a bunch of drunk people watch), so I can see them shutting down streets to have a race. Providence is kinda like Boston's do-anything cousin that is down for whatever while Boston is too worried about offending people and plays it safe.

Thinking about other New England cities... Portland ME could possibly do it, Hartford CT is a stretch because it's pretty sketchy these days, same with Springfield MA, Worcester MA, and many others.

People suck

Back in the 1990s there were several years of Trans-Am races on a street course in Minneapolis; as I recall, it took several years for the promoters to work through all the issues to get the races held in the first place.

I would be surprised if any other city would pick up this Indy car race with only a few months' notice.

The key hangup was that the city demanded that no tax payer money be spent. Hard to have a big event happen in a city, which would benefit local businesses, without spending a little money to help support it.

We seem to have no issues supporting conventional sports spaces...

I'm fine with the No Tax payer moneys... What I'm not fine with is the constant changing of the rules of the game by the city... I don't blame the promoter at all for packing up. city: Jump... Now jump through this hoop... oh wait you did that well okay now you need another high $$ wet lands permit.. berkeley boston. As someone who grow up just 20 miles outside of the hell hole that has become Boston and now lives in the "sticks" I'm tired of paying for BOSTON....We have are own problems. Yes I would have loved to see the race here but I knew they'd find a away to stop it.

They need to race at Palmer instead.

In reply to chaparral:

X1000 that ribbon of asphalt is amazing

stuart in mn wrote: Back in the 1990s there were several years of Trans-Am races on a street course in Minneapolis; as I recall, it took several years for the promoters to work through all the issues to get the races held in the first place. I would be surprised if any other city would pick up this Indy car race with only a few months' notice.

the promoters of that race actually repaved many of the streets that were used for those races with better asphalt before the first race ever took place. MNDOT basically got to use the race course as a test bed for experimental asphalt mixes that were supposed to hold up better to abuse and MN weather and someone else paid for it.. i wonder how that asphalt stood up over time?

one thing that i thought was amusing about the quote in the OP was how they called Indycar an "attention grabbing event" when most people don't even know that Indycars race at other times and places besides the Indy 500..

Oh lord! But they have no problem with an annual foot race of human piles of dog crap that clog the streets and use tax payer money... Hypocrites!

"But hey, the Boston marathon was attacked. It needs special attention now." Effin retards. That whole city can suck it.

I suspect that there were just to may people wanting a piece of it so they said FU to Boston and moved on. Not surprising really.

Springfield would be a good venue as would Worcester.

In reply to Trackmouse:

There's a BIG difference here. The Marathon occurs on a holiday. While streets do get closed, it's only for half of a day, and most people that would be working are home anyway. The race was going to shut down the busy (and recently redeveloped) Seaport District for almost a week, making it damn near impossible for anyone to get to work or for those that live there to go anywhere. That's not feasible. If they did this 10 years ago before the Seaport District had been redeveloped, I can guarantee you that race would be happening. The "tax" thing is a convenient excuse, and relevant to Bostonians from the whole Olympic deal from last year.

Did I want a car race to happen in Boston? Hell yes! Was it at all feasible the way they had planned and organized it? Unfortunately not.

And that comment about attacking the Marathon... It's obvious you live nowhere near here, because if you did, you wouldn't be saying that. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Would love to see them at the Glen.

I also fully support them coming back to Baltimore.

Chicago would be an awesome venue for a street course. They already close down many streets for various festivals through the year, so traffic gets berkeleyed anyway.

My dad told me that back in the early 80's IndyCar was trying to promote a venue in the Chicago and Mayor Jane Byrne shut it down faster than they could promote it, said that it wouldn't help the city.

Devilsolsi wrote: Would love to see them at the Glen. I also fully support them coming back to Baltimore.

Baltimore was an awesome race.

They already did indycar in the Chicago area. It got axed because of attendance. Then in 2012, they tried to propose to do it in the city and the city laughed.

As for the comments on the Boston Marathon, That is truly offensive. As a close friend of a number of the runners that made that race in the last couple years, You don't know the amount of hard work and sacrifice those people put in to be able to run that event. I only hope I can some day I can be fast enough to be one of those "Human piles of dog crap" as you so eloquently put it that has the honor of running that great race.

Completely different ball game compared to an indycar race that will probably draw less spectators than the Boston Marathon does runners.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

2 issues with Baltimore, neither of which are the usual issues of a city hosting the race i.e. the powers that be within the city not wanting it.

1) race organizers never made a profit on the race. That's why the plug was pulled on it, it wasn't city council saying no more, it wasn't (as reported) a one time scheduling conflict with a college football game It was money.

2) batE36M3 crazy unsafe course design. The light rail tracks unsettled the chassis, so their answer was to install a chicane onto the straight forced the unsettled chassis to negotiate a chicane at race pace. Who's the Einstein who's never even done an HPDE who thought that would be a safe and prudent idea. Run that course design 5-6 years and I all but guarantee a fatality. They were lucky to get away with it for 3 with only a few "incidents" occurring from that blatant oversight.

Didn't they run Trans Am in Des Moines? I would love an Indycar race in Chicago but they have tried with Chicago Speedway( just a bad paper clip shaped oval) and Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet. It just doesn't draw, which is funny because growing up in the south suburbs, the old timers always talked about going to Indy for the 500.

bmw88rider wrote: They already did indycar in the Chicago area. It got axed because of attendance. Then in 2012, they tried to propose to do it in the city and the city laughed.

The retrofitted horse race track called Chicago Motor Speedway was a joke and was doomed from the get go. CART didn't do it any favors.

Chicagoland Speedway is a cookie cutter track and is boring as sin, plus it's in Joliet, which is also not Chicago.

Attendance is always going to be an issue for IndyCar. NASCAR is 3 times more popular.

I was surprised they got as close as they did. I help set up our detours for the NYC marathon and to close streets for 10-12 hours costs a fortune to set up barriers, overtime for PD, FD, Sanitation, Transit, ect plus the inconvenience to people and businesses in the area. To make more permanent closures for a longer period of time is very ambitious. It's a lot of money for an event that probably won't draw very many people.