![]() ![]() I hope for the sake of the sport and the town that everything goes flawlessly. ![]() “And that means there’s lots of pressure. “I haven’t seen buzz around a new event like this, well, ever. “You have a town that knows how to have a good time, that knows how to promote events and throw parties, and they’ve absolutely knocked it out of the park,” veteran Ind圜ar driver James Hinchcliffe told IndyStar in a recent interview. If the city of Nashville, local officials, race organizers and backers, and Ind圜ar itself can pull off this weekend’s three-day event - that includes suites inside an NFL stadium, running over a body of water, Grammy-winning entertainment and expected race-day crowds north of 60,000 - the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix may prove to be all those hyped-up adjectives and more.īut with the last decade of failed ventures serving as a backdrop, those close to the event admit that it’s not overexaggerating to say a lot is on the line. ![]() Yet, Ind圜ar followers whose fandom date back to the end of “The Split” have witnessed plenty of hype trains come crashing down in a mess of false promises, government squabbles and even a bankruptcy and lawsuit. Less than two months after that first meeting with Penske, the Music City Grand Prix was billed as Ind圜ar’s next “one-of-a-kind, dynamic, exhilarating, world-class experience” of a street course race, one setup to be a pillar of the calendar for years to come. “And we just weren’t satisfied that all the right ingredients had come together.” “We went through years of discussions with various promoter groups in Nashville who wanted us to make arrangements with them,” Miles told IndyStar in an exclusive interview. That Big Machine Music City Grand Prix officials Chris Parker (president), Matt Crews (CEO), Jason Rittenberry (COO) and others were invited to Indianapolis late last summer to pitch a new street race may be a miracle all its own. His series’ schedule was changing by the week, while the pandemic’s affects were evolving every day, and some of his teams were precariously close to not being able to pay some employees and the prospect of folding altogether. Roger Penske, just half a year clear from his several-hundred-million-dollar purchase of Ind圜ar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, had a once-in-a-century pandemic on his hands and was staring at the prospect of the Indianapolis 500 not hosting a single fan for the first time in its 104-year-history. ![]()
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