So what went wrong at the Iowa Speedway?

[NWICY]

The Iowa Speedway lost Indy Car and their Nascar affiliated races for the coming yr. I always enjoyed watching the Indy car race it seemed like a good track to race on. Anyone that can explain what happened I'd appreciate the insight. With those events being gone is there anyway that place can cover it's costs?

 

[Urbandale2013]

I think the answer is NASCAR. They are run by a bunch of idiots. They’ve made a ton of stupid rule changes and destroyed a ton of tracks. They’ve run their schedule forcing a bunch of cookie cutter tracks which hurts fans. Then they use fan attendance to justify closing tracks.

Races are also really expensive. Not sure on Iowa prices but went to a race in Kansas and spent a fortune. I used to be a decent casual fan. Now I don’t watch hardly at all.

 

[mj4cy]

Man a few years ago they were close to sniffing NASCAR now they've gone backwards....

 

[Cyrealist]

The Iowa Speedway lost Indy Car and their Nascar affiliated races for the coming yr. I always enjoyed watching the Indy car race it seemed like a good track to race on. Anyone that can explain what happened I'd appreciate the insight. With those events being gone is there anyway that place can cover it's costs?

NASCAR owns the track and NASCAR has been hemorrhaging money the last few years. It's a place to cut expenses. Roger Penske rented the track this year and promoted the Indycar races and says he would like to continue, but I doubt that can cover maintenance costs. NASCAR did a lot of it to themselves with cookie-cutter tracks and cookie-cutter cars. They really laid an egg last year when they cut the power of the cars and increased the downforce. The rules package on the Cup side anyway is much better this year but Covid is a killer and I suspect too many people have given up on NASCAR.

 

[Cyclone06]

Incredible cost to build. Racing in this area not popular enough to recoup costs, plus no real high profile races.

 

[NenoFone]

I would add not having their priorities right. Scrapping Indycar qualifying because they had a concert scheduled and the race day was going long. 99% of the people left the circuit, I think I saw 5 people watching the concert.

 

[Drew0311]

I went to Metallica at the raceway and it was great. I was suprised they didn’t try and schedule more events like that. Iowa Speedway is gonna end up like Nazareth. You can YouTube Nazareth speedway and see what happened to that place

 

[06_CY]

The track didn't have to pay ANY sales tax to the state, but still charged high prices for concessions. That's one way to drive off fans. Of all the tracks I've been to, they had some of the highest prices.