Oilpressure

We are now a few days removed from this past weekend’s Hy-Vee Milwaukee Mile 250s, yet people are still buzzing about what great races they were. We drove back from Milwaukee on Monday and got back home around 9:30 Monday night. Having been there, I can tell you –not only were the races good, so was the event. There was a lot of track activity, especially on Saturday. While Sunday had nothing going on except what turned out to be a fantastic Race Two; Saturday had two separate qualifying sessions for Indy NXT and the NTT IndyCar Series. Later that afternoon, there was the Indy NXT race, and Race One for the NTT IndyCar Series.

Many have been saying that they should have started Saturday’s IndyCar race later, in order to have a night race. Keep one thing in mind – there are no lights at the Milwaukee Mile. I know CART or Champ Car (whatever it was at the time) brought in temporary lighting at least once, but I’m not sure how well that worked.

It is sounding as if IndyCar officials were expecting about 30,000 for the entire weekend – meaning about 15,000 per race. As it turned out, about 40,000 fans showed up over the two-day stretch – about 20,000 per race. And that was with a NASCAR Truck race at Milwaukee just one weekend before.

A 33% increase over what was projected is significant, although it did cause one problem. Most of the event merchandise had been gobbled up before the green flag flew for Race One. I suppose it makes sense not to order much merchandise, in case few people show up. Then someone is stuck with a lot of obsolete and dated product. The fact that they sold out of their most of the event merchandise is a good problem to have.

I imagine the perfect weather helped also. After seeing that Saturday night had such a fun race t watch, I’ll bet a lot of locals decided on Sunday morning to go to Race Two. I’ve not seen the numbers, but I’m guessing that Sunday had a really good walk-up crowd.

For the first time in a long time, there is some good momentum at Milwaukee. Attendance dropped through the 2000s to laughable levels. Michael Andretti tried to revive the event in the 2010s, but it wasn’t to be. By the 2015 race, it was mostly friends and family of the drivers involved. That’s why it disappeared from the IndyCar schedule for nine years. Many skeptics didn’t give this past weekend a chance, given the fact that Milwaukee hasn’t drawn well in over two decades, and that the event was held over Labor Day weekend – normally a weekend that doesn’t draw well at all.

How can IndyCar capitalize on the momentum for this event going forward? Next year, the race date will be one week earlier – a weekend before Labor Day weekend. That should help. There will also not be a NASCAR Truck Race just one week earlier. That event is not on the Truck schedule for 2025. That should be an even bigger help.

The biggest change between this year and next year at Milwaukee is that it will not be a double-header. It will be one single race. Some of the complaints I heard about Milwaukee nine years ago, was that there was very little track activity. There was too much downtime. This year, there was nothing n Sunday except for Race Two for the NTT IndyCar Series. Indy NXT had already packed up and gone home after their Saturday race.

Milwaukee race fans are not like fans in other parts of the country. For instance, in my hometown of Nashville – fans have to be enticed by big names for concerts to come out. You won’t get too many fans by just providing a lot of track activity. Nashville fans need something to keep their attention. I have found over the years that fans in Wisconsin absolutely love racing – any kind of racing. Between The Milwaukee Mile and Road America, they have two outstanding racing facilities about an hour and a half apart that are both steeped in IndyCar history. They come to these events for the racing, not to attend concerts.

I believe there were concerts attached to the Milwaukee double-headers, but they were not held at the track. They were held elsewhere –maybe on the Fairgrounds property, but I’m not sure. I’m guessing about 95% of those that attended the two races this past weekend were there strictly for the racing.

If I were running the Milwaukee event next season (and I’m very grateful that ‘m not), I would schedule the Vintage Indy Series to come to Milwaukee. They already go to Road America each season, so they may not be too keen on making two trips to Wisconsin. But if event organizers can get them, they should. They run Indy cars (or replicas) that span about ninety years, from the mid-1910s all the way up to Kosuke Matsuura’s Panasonic car from circa 2006. Practically every decade is represented, with a heavy dose of roadsters and rear-engine cars from the 1960s – including Joe Leonard’s pole-winning turbine-powered Lotus 56.

I always enjoy seeing the Vintage cars on track, as well as their static display where you can get right next to them. Their sights and sounds bring a whole lot of memories back to me, and I imagine to a lot of fans in Wisconsin.

I could see where Saturday at Milwaukee next season would consist of Indy NXT practice, followed by IndyCar practice, then the Vintage Indy Series followed b y Indy NXT qualifying and then IndyCar qualifying. Then possibly hold a final practice session to close out the day. Sunday could start with another on-track appearance by the Vintage cars, before the Indy NXT race. Then after a short break, they could have the feature event – the NTT IndyCar Series race. That’s two full days of fairly constant on-track activity to keep the fans interested, without having to provide other forms of entertainment to hold their attention.

I am a traditionalist, and obviously my preference would be to hold the Milwaukee race the weekend after the Indianapolis 500. But that is not doable for the time being. Holding Milwaukee as the race before the season finale seems like it would work. I just hope that race officials and series officials can work together to make sure that date stays constant. Jumping around from month to month is the easiest way I know of to kill momentum and ultimately the event. This rebirth of Milwaukee is off to a good start. There are two more years on the existing contract. Let’s hope they can build something sustainable this time.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on September 4, 2024 at 4:03 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.