IndyCar earlier this week announced that it had canceled its race scheduled for Aug. 19 in China and that it is looking to replace the event on the schedule this fall. Several tracks were rumored to be among those considered to replace China, including Texas Motor Speedway, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Watkins Glen International and Phoenix International Raceway.
Michigan International Speedway, which last hosted IndyCar in 2007, was not on that rumor-mill list, and MIS president Roger Curtis just assumed his track was not on IndyCar's radar.
Curtis reiterated on Thursday that he'd be interested in talking to IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard about bringing the series back to the high-speed oval in Michigan, and the Associated Press reported that an IndyCar representative contacted Curtis about doing so.
"Our business department put a call in to Roger late afternoon to explore any potential opportunities and see what type of interest either side has," Bernard told The Associated Press. "We've appreciated some of these track presidents coming out and expressing interest in IndyCar."
Curtis, who has stated several times in the past that he would be receptive to bringing open-wheel racing back to MIS, on Thursday told Autoweek that IndyCar's return would have to make sense financially.
"I think it would be great," Curtis said. "But even if they decide that MIS is the place they want to go, we'd still need to talk about that financial model and how that's going to work. It has to make sense for us and make sense for them. Ultimately, that's what caused us to put [IndyCar] on the shelf [after the 2007 race]."
Curtis said that if IndyCar decided the time is right to bring the series back to MIS as early as this fall, his team could make it happen.
"I don't know why not," he acknowledged. "I don't think it would be perfect, but we've put together stuff a lot quicker than that."
The first race at MIS, in 1968, was an open-wheel affair, and the speedway hosted open-wheel, or Indy-car style, racing annually from 1970-2007.
Source:
autoweek.com
