I heard tons of rumors this past weekend. Some were confirmed within hours of hearing them. Others are still hanging out there. The first one I heard going into Indy was that this was the last one. Quickly found out that it was marketing ballyhoo. Then heard 2014 was in the works, but that it would take several weeks to hammer out. Hours later it was confirmed that there indeed will be a 2014 and a long term multi-year deal was going to be included. The next rumor I heard, from a somewhat credible source, is that Casey Stoner will be back this season, even though Casey publicly has stated otherwise. Also witnessed first hand that Pedrosa has a sense of humor. Heard several things about american riders and where they are going to be and not going to be in 2014. Heard Beaubier going to moto2, going to superbike heard the nicky hayden lcr deal is just waiting on someone to write the check.
Can't see that happening. The draw for Indy is that it is easily accessible to a wide range of fans who can be back at home and in bed with time to get up for work on Monday. Navigating 50K fans out of Speedway and then to 465 at night would not be fun.
The Indy 500 is the Sunday before Memorial day so most of those fans aren't working that Monday anyways.
Wouldn't it be a Sat. night race then? And Nicky on an LCR Honda would be good for Nicky. At least he could run better in the races...get on the podium again.
The rumor or whatever you call it is that it'd be a Honda production racer, not the factory bike. A podium would take one hell of a lot (but not totally impossible).
Yeap, if someone is willing to pay (American Honda or someone). He is, the formal announcement was a couple of days ago.
50k fans leaving Indy is a piece of cake. Maybe they are thinking about a Saturday night race, I think that would be cool, except if it kills the Mile race at the fairgrounds. I'll bet a paycheck that the road course will be paved before next year.
I heard from a former World Champion, that I had the pleasure of talking to in the airport this AM, that when the Indy deal is Extended, the Laguna round will probably get axed. also, that there are proposed changes to the track layout at Indy being discussed, and a repaving of the infield in the works.
After the race they talked about a re-doing of the Turn 2,3,4 area before next year. We stayed for the 2nd XR race and from the time we got out of the parking lot to my house in Louisville took us 2 hours, which is the normal time to Indy. We had no traffic issues at all.
For the first F1 race there, they didn't seem to have any problem getting IMS emptied out immediately after the race. I made it to the airport in 20 min. One thing that the cops have figured out there is how to get traffic out of there after a big event.
Indy is designed to get 200,000+ people in and out. I don't think 50 to 60,000 is remotely a problem.
