Octane Motorsports, which had taken over the financially-strapped event for 2011, announced that it could not reach an agreement with the City of Edmonton for the IndyCar race at Edmonton’s City Centre Airport, which always featured big crowds, good racing and massive debt, has been scrapped.The culpritv looks to be an expensive disagreement over the site of the race because the city officials wanted to move race to Runways 16-34 to keep the airport open although since Champ Car first began running at the downtown airport course in 2005, the race had been staged on Runway 12-30.
That would have cost Octane an estimated $3 million and it proved to be the deal breaker according to the statement from Octane’s Francois Dumontier.
“We are extremely sad to confirm that our group will not be able to offer Western Canada fans an Indy racing event in Edmonton for 2011. Until the last minute we hoped the city would agree with our legitimate request to provide us a site equivalent to the one the previous promoters have worked with and this, without having our group invest in ground works.
The city’s final decision has made it impossible for us to offer an event complying with our high quality standards, able to satisfy the fans, the sanctioning organization and maintain the quality of our spectacle.”
IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard, who Tuesday traveled to Las Vegas where he’s trying to wrap up a deal to close to the 2011 season, got back in Indy just in time for the bad news.
“It was a shot out of the blue and I’m extremely disappointed because we had a press conference last summer where the Mayor stood up, shook hands and said we had a deal. My immediate thought is that we want to keep two events in Canada because we have such a solid fan base so we’ll see what we can do.”
Octane, which successfully promoted the Formula One and NASCAR races in Montreal this year, is interested in staging a race in Quebec City, along with a group led by Andre Azzi, co-owner of Alex Tagliani's FAZZT IndyCar team and another entity trying to work through longtime car owner Derrick Walker with the support of Bernard who admitted:
“It looks like we have three groups interested in Quebec and it’s a huge opportunity if Quebec wants to get on our calendar."
Edmonton, the first airport circuit since Cleveland in the early ‘80s, was an instant hit with the city in terms of attendance as more than 200,000 fans showed up for three days during the first two years.
But, despite the big crowds, the city announced multi-million dollar losses each year and the race was in jeopardy the past couple seasons until Octane stepped in.
