Miles Confident In Overall Growth Of IndyCar Despite “Long Off-Season”
Source: Joe Skibinski/Penske Entertainment / other
INDIANAPOLIS — Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles is not shying away from the fact that it has been a more challenging off-season for the NTT IndyCar Series than usual.
The off-season has been dominated by talk of a possible new charter system for the series, a meeting between the top brass and drivers about rule changes, a delayed rollout of the new hybrid engine, the fall-through of plans for a possible video game, and now a change in venue for the series’ final race of the 2024 season.
On Wednesday it was announced that the season finale in Nashville would be moved off the streets of Nashville and onto the oval at the Nashville Superspeedway.
Several reasons were cited for the change by event promoter and organizer Scott Borchetta of the Big Machine Label Group. They included logistical issues regarding planned renovations of the Titan’s football stadium and a lack of forethought by the event’s previous organizers as to how long and what it would take to rework the race’s street course to include parts of downtown Nashville.
The hybrid engine was due to be ready by the beginning of this coming season, but soon after the 2023 season ended Penske Entertainment announced that the engine would not be rolled out until “sometime after the Indianapolis 500” during the 2024 season. This left some teams in a tough spot as they continued to develop and understand the new engine.
IndyCar also announced a deal for iRacing to license IndyCar content after it terminated a deal announced two years ago with Motorsport Games to develop a video game. The termination was the result of rapid business decline on MSG’s part.
Miles is undeterred by the challenges the series has faced this off-season.
“I think fans, as drivers have, need to keep in mind that this is the way we see it,” Miles said. “Every fan metric is up. We’re the only motorsports series in the country where television ratings and every other metric has been positive and increased.”
Miles also cited rising attendance numbers at almost each of their events during the 2023 season. He added that merchandise sales were up as well.
As for the move to Nashville Superspeedway for the 2024 season finale, Miles hopes that the event can be a platform for the series to get back to more of its roots in oval racing.
“It’s a great way to re-profile ovals for us, to increase the oval — the number of ovals in our championship, which a lot of fans are excited about,” Miles said. “We’ll work through this.”
The exact future of IndyCar’s event in Nashville is in somewhat uncharted waters as Bochetta said it all depends on the length of the aforementioned renovations to the Titan’s football stadium, not to mention the scheduling of NFL games once the stadium is done. Borchetta said the race could be back on the Nashville streets by 2027.
