by When asked to describe the challenges associated with moving an NTT IndyCar race from downtown to Nashville Superspeedway on short notice, Music City Grand Prix CEO Scott Borchetta answered the question with a question.
“Do you know about climbing Mount Everest?” Borchetta asks. “It’s like we’ve been doing this over and over again for the last few months.”
On Sunday, seven months and one day after Borchetta announced his move, the fourth annual Music City Grand Prix will be held at Nashville Superspeedway (2:25 p.m., NBC and Peacock) in Lebanon, 35 miles from the downtown spectacle it has become as a road course that includes an iconic stretch over the Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge.
The race will be held on a 1.33-mile oval course on a concrete track and if Borchetta is successful, she will retain the fame and popularity she had in downtown, where more than 50,000 fans regularly showed up and television ratings soared.
What is the future of the Music City Grand Prix?
The long-term plan is to move the Music City Grand Prix to downtown. But that won’t happen until 2028 since the Titans’ $2.1 billion stadium isn’t scheduled to be completed until 2027 and the existing stadium will have to be demolished after that date.
In the meantime, Borchetta is confident the race can be as successful at Nashville Superspeedway as it was downtown. He even thinks the race will grow its fan base because the more condensed venue will make it more enjoyable for spectators.
“Nashville Superspeedway will be very easy to navigate. You come in, you have the main grandstand, the track, our fan zone is going to be incredible,” Borchetta said. “When we were downtown, it was very difficult to navigate. Fans were wondering, ‘How do I get to Broadway? How do I get to the paddock? What can I see from that vantage point?’ It’s going to be great there. The fan experience will be 10 times better.”
IndyCar’s ‘Super Bowl’ Comes to Nashville
For the event to eventually return to downtown, it’s essential that Music City Grand Prix officials get involved in plans for residential and commercial development on the 30-acre strip of land on the east bank next to the Titans’ stadium so that an IndyCar road course can be built in the area.
“IndyCar, Big Machine, Metro, the state of Tennessee and Davidson County need to start working together very soon,” Borchetta said. “Because if we get ahead of the game on all of the East Bank plans and are in the conversation, we’ll have another opportunity to deliver another sports gem to Nashville and Middle Tennessee.”
If the race returns downtown, Borchetta said, it will be an even bigger event than before it left.
“It’s going to be more important because we’re in the finals now, and after the Indy 500, the next thing people are talking about is who’s going to win the championship?” Borchetta said. “So if we’re successful, for the foreseeable future, the next 10 to 20 years, we could be hosting the IndyCar Super Bowl every year in Nashville.”
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Nashville’s Josef Newgarden tops IndyCar ovals
One potential benefit of moving the race to Nashville Superspeedway is that Nashville native Josef Newgarden has proven throughout his career that he is better on ovals than road courses. In 2023, IndyCar.com writer Eric Smith called Newgarden the “undisputed king of short ovals” among current IndyCar Series drivers.
“I don’t want to think the oval is working in our favour,” Newgarden said. “But we’ve had some good form on the oval as a team, so you have to admit it’s not a bad thing for us.”
Newgarden won his first Indy 500 race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval. He repeated this year as the Indy 500 champion.
Having the local rider as favourite could therefore naturally increase interest in Sunday’s race.
“Josef has already had a brilliant career with back-to-back Indy 500 wins and two (IndyCar) titles,” Borchetta said. “But if you ask him what gems he’s missing? He wants to win his hometown Grand Prix. He’s 100 percent at or near the top of the things he still wants to achieve.”
Newgarden, The Tennessean’s 2023 Sportsman of the Year, finished fourth at the 2023 Music City Grand Prix, his best finish to date. He finished sixth in 2022 and 10th in 2021.
Will Sunday’s Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway be a sellout?
All luxury suites and other premium seats have been sold out for Sunday’s race for several weeks.
There are still some grandstand seats left, and officials don’t expect the race to sell out like three of the four NASCAR Cup Series races at Nashville Superspeedway. But a large crowd is expected.
The risk of scattered showers could, however, affect attendance.
“The grandstand ticket sales are very good,” Borchetta said. “I don’t know if they’ll sell out, but it’s going to be good. If the weather is nice, it’ll help us. (The weather) is a little bit of a challenge for us right now. It plays a big part, if we have a really nice Saturday and Sunday.”
Several events are scheduled for Saturday, including concerts as well as the Music City Grand Prix qualifiers (1:45 p.m.) and practices (10:30 a.m. and 4:45 p.m.).
Why IndyCar Racing Left Nashville Superspeedway
This won’t be the first time IndyCar has visited Nashville Superspeedway. A total of eight IndyCar races have been held there since the track opened in 2001, built and owned by Dover Motorsports.
Racing left the venue entirely in 2011 and it closed after failing to secure a NASCAR Cup race.
While lower-tier Truck and NASCAR races failed to draw large crowds to the venue at the time, attendance at IndyCar races was always strong and even included sellouts.
“When we started building in 2000, Dover always said we needed a Cup race to survive and I always thought they would have one of their two races here,” said former Nashville Superspeedway communications director Sean Dozier. “Of course, it never happened. But IndyCar racing became the most popular race in the 2000s. It sold out a lot, the drivers were accommodating and it created a great racing atmosphere.”
After 2008, in an effort to add more road courses to its schedule, IndyCar dropped the Nashville race.
Contact Mike Organ at 615-259-8021 or X @MikeOrganWriter.
This article was originally published on Nashville Tennessean: The Future of IndyCar Racing in Nashville: Superspeedway or Back Downtown?
