Oilpressure

I had heard rumors of this for a couple of weeks, but Marshall Pruett of Racer.com pretty much confirmed it in an article on Wednesday. It has since been confirmed by an official press release from IndyCar. Penske Entertainment will take over as promoter of the Music City Grand Prix. Big Machine Records had been the entitlement sponsor in that role since the inception of the event in 2001. Last year, Scott Borchetta of Big Machine stepped up as the promoter in a big way.

When construction of the new Titans stadium pushed the event off of the streets of downtown Nashville, it was Borchetta who stepped in and essentially saved the event by striking a late deal with Nashville Superspeedway to host the event on the 1.33-mile concrete oval about 35 miles east of downtown.

I don’t think Borchetta has been given enough credit over the last year. This time a year ago, it looked like this event was going to be dead in the water. The plan was to greatly alter the street course to run on Lower Broadway in downtown Nashville. Unfortunately, those in charge of promotion at the time, failed to attain the proper permits and other logistical oversights. Had Borchetta not stepped in to re-take control over the event he was so instrumental in creating four years ago and put a lot of his own money into the 2024 race, the event may have gone away and it would have been a significant black-eye for the NTT IndyCar Series.

It’s unclear if Borchetta asked Penske Entertainment to take over, or if Penske Entertainment initiated the change. Big Machine will still be involved as the title sponsor, and Borchetta will also be personally involved as the liaison between the event and the Nashville music industry.

Since it was announced that the race was being moved to the oval, I’ve always wondered if the race would ever return to the streets of downtown. I noticed in the article that Pruett referred to this year’s even simply as the NTT IndyCar Series season finale at Nashville Superspeedway. That makes me wonder, has the Music City Grand Prix moniker been dropped, since it will now be on an oval?

I’m not quite sure what I think about all of this. Say what you want to about the actual races on the downtown street circuit. The first two were labeled as s***shows, but the third and final race on the street circuit was actually good. But the event itself had a festival feel to it, and there was a uniqueness about the event that made it feel different than any race I have been to. It was well-attended and there was a buzz about town. Attendees, especially those that showed up for all three days, had positive things to say about it.

The move to the Superspeedway made headlines at first, but as the event drew closer – it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Most people I talked to had no idea the event had moved to the oval. They just thought the event had run its course and they weren’t going to hold it anymore.

It was very unfortunate that the season-finale on the oval went head-to-head against the Titan’s home-opener. If those fans that crammed into Nissan Stadium had known that the Titans were going to end up with the worst record in the league, they may have been more tempted to go to the race instead of the football game. Had they gone to the race, they would’ve been treated to a race that was much more competitive than the Titans game.

It was also unfortunate that the raced weekend was plagued by rain, as the remnants of Hurricane Francine was parked over the area. I don’t mean a few sprinkles here and there to irritate fans – I’m talking downpours on Saturday that pushed practice deep into the night. Two hours before the race on Sunday looked like doomsday, but it never rained and they got the race and the championship celebrations in.

But all things considered, given the situation – I thought Scott Borchetta did a phenomenal job.

Penske Entertainment is building themselves quite the portfolio of racing events. They have surpassed Green Savoree Racing Promotions (GSRP), with IndyCar events they promote. GSRP promotes St. Petersburg, Toronto, Mid-Ohio and Portland. Penske Entertainment now owns or promotes Long Beach, the IMS Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500, Detroit, Iowa, Milwaukee and now Nashville. Between the two, that’s twelve of the seventeen races on the schedule – remember, Iowa counts as two races. That only leaves Thermal, Barber, Road America, Gateway and Laguna Seca not promoted by one of these two entities.

This year’s race has been on the IndyCar schedule since last summer, so they don’t have to deal with late scheduling surprises like last year, but what will Penske Entertainment do differently this year? Not counting the two races each year at IMS, I’ve only been to two races promoted by Penske Entertainment – Iowa and Milwaukee. We were very impressed by the entire event at Iowa. Between the races, the concerts, the seating and concessions and everything geared toward the entire fan experience – it all ran like a well-oiled machine. Of course, they’ve had three years to perfect it. Milwaukee was not as seamless last year, but it was their first year. I expect it to be a lot more up to speed this year.

This will be their first year to be the promoter at Long Beach. That’s a race I’ve never been to, so I can’t speak to what it has been like. But I haven’t heard a lot of bad things about Long Beach, hopefully they will come in and make just a couple of tweaks here and there, instead of making wholesale changes with what is already a good product.

Nashville will be different. The location of the track is not an easy sell. If you are from out of town and want to experience the Nashville night life along with the racing, you are going to do a lot of driving. It’s much cheaper to stay in one of the surrounding towns, than it is for downtown Nashville. But if you go into town for some late night carousing – you have a long drive back to your hotel in Lebanon.

The key is to bring back the locals that were buying tickets for the downtown races. I think those that are going to travel have already been convinced they are coming to Nashville. With a Labor Day date, they no longer have to worry about a conflict with the Titans. That is the idle Sunday before the NFL season kicks off.

Considering the Titans game, and the threatening weather – there were more fans in the seats than I was expecting. Some estimated the crowd at around 15,000. All things considered, that wasn’t that bad. (My photo)

As a long-time local, I’ll be curious to see what innovative things Penske Entertainment can come up with to get people to make the trek to Wilson County over the two-day championship weekend. Hopefully, there will be a compelling championship battle going on, and it won’t be the Alex Palou Invitational.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on January 24, 2025 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.