Track and IRL officials unhappy to leave LA area source: irl.racing-live.com California Speedway is not on the 2006 IndyCar Series schedule and that is not sitting well with track President, Gillian Zucker. "We exhaustively discussed race date options with the Indy Racing League. In the end, California Speedway was not included on the schedule for 2006," said Zucker. "With the IRL's desire to compress its schedule, starting later and ending earlier to avoid competition with fall NFL events and create continuity week to week with open-wheel racing, it became increasingly more difficult to come up with a suitable date that would allow us to execute an event. "Options considered included the same date as the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach (owned and operated by the rival Champ Car series), or mid-summer dates where the heat index would not allow for a good working environment for the teams or an enjoyable time for the fans. As with many other venues, the June 4th date was desirable to California Speedway, but Watkins Glen International secured that date." Indy Racing League Vice President for Business Affairs, Ken Ungar implied that assigning the first weekend in June to the road course at Watkins Glen was not totally his decision. "First, a California date post Indy would have put an unacceptable burden on our teams to make the California date and time logistically," said Ungar of the 2100 mile trip from Indy to the West Coast. "This problem would have only been compounded if we had rain at Indy as we've seen in past years. Additionally, the June 4 date was viewed as optimal for Watkins Glen as determined by ISC (International Speedway Corporation - owners of both Watkins Glen and California). It has to balance all its competing interests internally and come up with a schedule that's best for the fans, for the tracks and their shareholders."
Recent Articles
|
Racing Multimedia
Recommendations |