MILLER: $100M Handout For IMS?

After a century of always reaching in its own pockets, IMS finally has its hand out.

Robin Miller | Posted February 11, 2013

Could state funds help IMS modernize its ageing facility? (Photo: IMS)

Tony Hulman was proud of many things: watching the race track he rescued in 1945 turn into the mecca of motorsports, keeping ticket prices affordable and forging lasting partnerships with local businesses.

The savior of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway also achieved great satisfaction out of the fact he never asked the city of Indianapolis or the state of Indiana for any money.

David Cassidy, who served as Tony’s right-hand man in just about every capacity at IMS for 40 years, once told me that Mr. Hulman never considered asking for help because he didn’t need any, he didn’t like the idea and IMS was a private company that wasn’t interested in sharing any inside information.

Sure, IMS got some tax breaks along the way but the world’s greatest race track was autonomous in terms of standing on its own financially.

Even after Mr. Hulman’s death in 1977, the Speedway always fended for itself as the world of basketball, football and baseball used public taxes to build stadiums or keep teams in their city.

So the news that IMS is seeking state aid through a special tax to put a spit shine on 16th & Georgetown is as much historic as it may be out of character.

Not real sure what the public’s reaction is going to be but before too much hand wringing or bitching goes down let’s consider a few facts.

For the better part of 80 years, the Indianapolis 500 was our city’s identity. Before the Pacers, Peyton and Pan-Am Games, Naptown came to life once a year in the world’s eyes.

It was a month-long jackpot for the city’s hotels (Indianapolis might have invented the 4-day gouge), restaurants and bars that even filtered down to mom & pop renting parking spaces in the yard.

The 500 Festival worked hand-in-hand with the Speedway as did the police and sheriff’s departments and Indy was the biggest community project going.

But, obviously, times have changed.

The Split in 1996 reduced May to a long weekend and the shock of seeing nobody at practice or qualifying and all those empty seats on race day also took a toll on Indy’s bottom line.

It wasn’t the cash cow it had always been, that honor went to NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 from 1994-2004. Of course, that’s all changed in the past few years and now Indy’s 250,000 seats are filling up again in May while the place is only half full for the stock cars in July.

The MOTO GP crowd looks barren at IMS but it must pay the bills and last year’s initial GRAND-AM sports car race had as many yellow shirts as paying customers. All the other series that have come to the Brickyard have had different degrees of success, but fan interest always comes back to Indy car.

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Robin Miller

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