Oilpressure

Gaffes happen sometimes, among the biggest and best PR Departments. The NFL has been known for some of the biggest. MLB and NASCAR come to mind as letting out a few embarrassing PR moments as well.

This past Wednesday morning, I received a text from a friend of mine. It was nothing more than a screen-shot of a tweet.

At first glance, I thought it was a major gaffe by whoever is in charge of social media for the NTT IndyCar Series. My first impression was that someone with IndyCar had screwed up about the location of this year’s season finale, because they didn’t know the difference between a temporary street circuit and an oval. We would get a cheap laugh at someone’s expense, before I would go about my day at work.

Then when I looked at the part underneath and read the headline, I realized this was no blunder and the joke was on me for thinking otherwise. When I saw the headline that the Music City Grand Prix (MCGP) would be racing at Nashville Superspeedway to possibly decide the IndyCar championship – I was ecstatic, and I didn’t care for the reasons why. Swapping a chaotic street circuit known for crashes, with a redesigned and unknown circuit; for another oval that used to host IndyCar races from 2001-2008 seemed like a no-brainer. Being situated in the city where I live was just icing on the cake.

It didn’t take long before my phone started blowing up, as well as my e-mail and social media direct messaging. I was on top of the world, until I saw how fans were making their snarky comments on social media. Comments like how IndyCar couldn’t get out of their own way, they’ve bungled something else and so forth saturated what I was reading. Suddenly, I realized that not everyone was looking at this through the rose-colored glasses I was wearing.

Many know that I have been quick to point out when I think the series has bungled something. In this case, however, I don’t think that the series is the main culprit here. After reading how Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta has taken over management of the MCGP and some of the things that went on behind the scenes – it sounds like a combination of failures on the part of the race promoters is what brought this on. Unfortunately for IndyCar, they are the most visible target for fans to vent their frustrations toward, so they were getting the blame.

It seems that before Borchetta re-took the reigns of the MCGP, those previously in charge made boasts to the city and to IndyCar that they simply couldn’t back up.

I wrote a post in late July, when rumors were swirling about the redesigned track becoming host to the 2024 IndyCar finale. If you read it, you’ll see I had many questions on how this would be pulled off. Having lived in Nashville for well over twenty years, I know the downtown area pretty well. I couldn’t really imagine how this was going to work being moved across the river from the site of Nissan Stadium, and the construction site of the new stadium (also to be called Nissan Stadium).

A little more than a week after I wrote that post, Susan and I attended a rooftop party in downtown Nashville, where IndyCar officials announced their ambitious plans for 2024, and released a diagram of the new layout. (all photos by George Phillips)

The roof overlooked a section of Broadway, the most celebrated part of the proposed new circuit. The party was attended by several drivers that included Nashville residents Josef Newgarden and Colton Herta. As confident as race officials sounded, I looked over the edge of the roof alongside a prominent member of IndyCar media, who will remain nameless. He looked at me, shook his head and said “I don’t see how this will work”. He was not alone. (all photos by George Phillips)

As I pointed out in the July post, the design had not gone before the City Council for approval. Nashville was also going through a transition with the mayor. Outgoing Mayor John Cooper had already announced he would not seek re-election. The Mayor’s election was actually taking place at that moment on the very same day, but resulted in a run-off to be decided about six weeks later. It’s easy to promise things, when there is no current leadership to say otherwise.

When Borchetta took over in December, he realized that so many promises had been made without any serious due-diligence being done to see if they were possible. I guess that explains why many officials with the MCGP were, um…relieved of their duties in January.

Somehow fans blamed IndyCar for this, but the series can only go by what the promoters tell them. It’s not the duty of the series to investigate to make sure that everything a promoter says is true. If they are writing the check to pay for the sanctioning fee, it’s up to the promoter to follow through. Besides, the series had been working with this group for the past several years. How were they to know the promoter was suddenly making promises they couldn’t keep?

It apparently didn’t take long for Borchetta to realize what had happened. Credit him for seeing the problem and taking the steps to get IndyCar involved to help find the solution. That solution was Nashville Superspeedway (NSS).

Just because I live in Nashville, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that NSS is the greatest race track in the world. It’s not. I’m name-dropping here, but in 2011 – my One Take Only cohort, John McLallen and I went to the Friday practice together at Barber. As we were leaving the media lot in the almost-empty shuttle (John, me and the driver), we heard someone yell for the shuttle to stop – it was Al Unser, Jr. He hopped in and I thought John was going to have a seizure, he was so excited.

I will give John credit. He is the one that asked Little Al his opinion of NSS. Unser kind of grimaced at the question, because John had already told him we were from Nashville and I think he didn’t want to burst John’s bubble. He finally said it wasn’t really his favorite track. Not only did the 1.33-mile concrete oval eat tires, but at best – it was a one and a half groove race track.

The track configuration hasn’t changed, nor has the surface. IndyCar ran some not so exciting races there from 2001 through 2008. It was the fault of the local track management at the time that IndyCar did not return in 2009. Toronto wanted their traditional mid-July date when they returned to the schedule in 2009, but IndyCar was willing to work with the track for another date. The issue was that NSS was paying the lowest sanctioning fee on the schedule at the time. IndyCar wanted to bring them up to what the other tracks were paying. Track officials tried calling their bluff, but IndyCar never returned – until now.

Despite the limitations of the track, Nashville Superspeedway is a very nice facility. Susan and I attended every IndyCar race at NSS. It is one track where you can truly say there is not a bad seat in the house. You can see the entire track from anywhere in the stands. The problem is, there are only about 25,000 permanent seats; but there is a lot of room for temporary seating on both sides of the stands along the main straightaway. Fans supported those races when IndyCae raced there before. Sellouts, or near-sellouts were common and it looked good on television. There are also ample restrooms and concessions.

I have never covered a race there, I was always a paying fan. This site started about eight months after the last IndyCar race in Nashville. In the near-fifteen years I’ve been doing this, I was always regretful that I was never able to cover the oval race in my hometown. Covering the three street races around the Titans stadium was about as close as I could come. Now I can finally check that box

The track has since been bought by Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI); so I can’t speak for their policies. But under the previous ownership, fans were able to buy a garage pass for $30. That was a great deal, but this was twenty years ago. The garage pass gave fans access to the garage area, where you are right up against the cars while the crews are working on them. Sometimes, we were so close – I felt guilty for being in their way. We also had full access to the paddock, where the transporters were – and the drivers were sometimes hiding. When the race was over, they would open the gates and let fans cross the track to celebrate with the winning driver in victory lane. It was a Friday-Saturday show, and was one of the best values in motorsports at the time. I’ve not been to any of the NASCAR events they’ve hosted since the track re-opened, so I don’t know their current policies.

Remember, there was a time when it appeared that Nashville Superspeedway had a date with the wrecking ball. Three years after the last IndyCar race there, Dover Motorsports, who built and owned the track decided to shut it down in 2011. A couple of times, it looked like the area had been sold to be developed into an industrial park. It saddened me that the site of winning drives by IndyCar greats like Gil de Ferran, Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon (three times); was to be bulldozed and turned into an Amazon warehouse. Twice the property was sold for redevelopment, and twice the deal fell through.

Out of nowhere, it was announced in 2020 that the track would reopen and would host a NASCAR event in 2021 – the same year of IndyCar’s debut at the MCGP. In November of 2021, SMI bought Dover Motorsports, and assumed operation of NSS.

The location is not ideal. Susan and I live in Bellevue, an area on the far western edge of Nashville. Nashville Superspeedway is in a remote area of Wilson County, which is due-east of Nashville. When they built the track in 2000, it was in the middle of nowhere. They figured; if we build it, they will come. They didn’t. The last time I was out there, it was still in the middle of nowhere. There are not any hotels or restaurants for miles.

Google Maps says that from our house to the track is 48.8 miles. That’s more than double the distance we’ll be staying from Road America this summer. That’s a mild inconvenience for us, but for those that expect to come to Nashville and mix racing with nightlife – you should expect to do some driving. For the past three years, fans coming to the Nashville IndyCar race relied on Uber to get around. I wouldn’t count on that this fall.

There are four current drivers that ran in the final IndyCar race at NSS in 2008: winner Scott Dixon, along with Ed Carpenter, Will Power and Graham Rahal. That was in the old Dallara, sixteen years ago. I’m not sure that will give them much of an advantage over the rest of the competitors, but what do I know?

All in all, I feel very good about this blunder. This interesting turn of events has worked out very well – at least for me. I live nearby and I love ovals, so I’m happy. I feel very confident with Scott Borchetta running things now. It sounds like the MCGP will have a new oval home for the next three years, before returning downtown after the new Titans stadium opens in the fall of 2027. It also gives IndyCar its first season-finale on an oval since 2014; when Tony Kanaan won the race at Fontana for Chip Ganassi and Will Power won the championship. If I had one more wish regarding this race – I wish it was a night race, like it used to be. But the race is scheduled to be run on Big NBC, and a Saturday night race on network television is almost out of the question – regardless of the fact it is the season finale. Instead, they will be going up against Week Two of the NFL. Oh, well…at least the Titans won’t be playing half a mile away.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on February 16, 2024 at 4:02 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.