Entering Year 5, can IndyCar Grand Prix be considered a success?

INDIANAPOLIS -- About this time every year, Mark Miles finds himself sharing a particular story. It’s the one about his first May in charge of IndyCar.

The Hulman & Co. CEO recalls the rush of excitement he felt the first day the gates to Indianapolis Motor Speedway were opened, and then the ensuing disappointment after only a light sprinkling of fans peppered the grandstands in the weeks leading up to the Indianapolis 500.

About 4,700 spectators walked through the gates that first day, Miles remembers. He said he realized then that things had to change.

“I remember thinking it was clear as could be that this is not what May’s going to be,” Miles told IndyStar recently. “Everything has to build to the 500. We have to add content. That was the top priority.”

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With the help of outside consulting firms, Miles, Senior VP of Hulman Motorsports Allison Melangton and their teams began devising ways to reinvigorate the month, to help recapture some of its lost luster. That included amped up efforts to engage the local community, an influx of entertainment, the reconfiguration of qualifying and, of course, the highly controversial addition of the IndyCar Grand Prix.

The Indianapolis road course race was perhaps the most rebuked of Miles’ reimagined month of May, as many traditionalists believed any Indy car racing at IMS outside of the historic oval was sacrilege.

“I remember people were freaked out -- many of them inside IndyCar,” Miles said. “‘We can’t do that grand prix thing (they said). ‘It’s only the oval.’”

Miles understood the resistance, and he wasn’t looking to trample tradition for no reason. He only wanted to enact measures that could recreate the magic that filled the month in its heyday while simultaneously extracting as much value as he could from one of the valuable assets at his disposal: the speedway.

Thus the goals of the IndyCar Grand Prix became twofold:

Make better use of the Racing Capital of the World. Meaningfully promote not only the 500 but IndyCar, as well.

With the fifth IndyCar Grand Prix on the horizon, it’s a good time to ask: Have those goals been met and should the event be considered a success?

Has the IndyCar Grand Prix made better use of IMS?

There is no question that it has. Since the inception of the grand prix, IMS now attracts fans through its gates on three weekends in May, rather than just for qualifying and the 500.

The addition of a championship race has undoubtedly added money to the pockets of IMS and IndyCar. How much? They won’t say, but the initial Boston Consulting Group estimate for a road race at Indy was that it could generate $4.2 million (that calculation was made assuming a fall race). Whatever the number, it’s more than than they were making before the race’s inception.

In the years preceding the inaugural grand prix, 500 qualifying weekend drew 10,000-15,000 people to the speedway, whereas the GP has annually attracted three to four times that many people, according to IMS President Doug Boles.

Has it meaningfully promoted the series and the 500?

Let’s start with the series.

One of the questions Boles can remember being asked the most during the first couple of years of the grand prix era was: “Now are those the same cars and same drivers who run in the Indy 500?”

Not great. But also not unexpected, Boles said.

“Many fans in this community really only know, in person, Indy cars as going around the oval,” Boles said. “So it has been neat for us to show them how versatile the cars and drivers are and what a lot of people around the country already know about IndyCar racing, which is left and right turns and braking and accelerating."

Boles said that entering the fifth year of the race, he’s been asked that question less often as more local fans learn the Verizon IndyCar Series is a year-round enterprise that doesn’t solely feature oval racing.

Meanwhile, the country as a whole is being exposed to IndyCar more as a result of the new-ish road course race. Under the current TV contract, the GP is one of just four non-Indy 500 races (St. Pete and the Detroit doubleheader being the others) shown on broadcast television (ABC). Over its first four years, the GP has drawn an average Nieslen rating of about 0.7. Not great, but still twice the average of its cable races on NBCSN (0.32) last year.

IndyCar officials are the first to admit the 0.7 is less than ideal. However, attracting double the viewership is still a coup for IndyCar, which now showcases its product on broadcast TV three weekends in a row between the GP, qualifying and the 500.

Now, whether the GP has had an effect on the 500 is a more difficult question to answer. While 500 attendance has grown since the inaugural GP, and the anticipation for the 500 around the city is palpable, does the GP deserve credit? It seems the work IMS and IndyCar have done to maintain the positive momentum created by the 100th running of the 500 deserves most of the credit, but perhaps there’s a case to be made that momentum builds from the road course race to qualifying to the race within city and state.

Boles makes that case.

“I still try to call 10 customers per night, something I started doing in 2016,” Boles said. “And I can tell you that in those first two years, even two or three races ago, people still didn’t understand the IndyCar Grand Prix. When I have those conversations today, I rarely hear people say it’s a mistake to run the IndyCar Grand Prix as part of May. They understand that the month of May is really about IndyCar racing, with the idea that the Indy 500 caps it off.”

Some IndyCar drivers have bought into this as well. James Hinchcliffe told IndyStar last week that, "May really kicks off when we hit the track for the grand prix. That's the new tradition, and I love it."

Outside of Indiana, though, there’s really no compelling argument that the GP has had a substantial effect on the 500. Despite the GP (and qualifying) being shown on national TV in the weekends leading up to the race, last year’s 500 suffered its worst overnight rating in ABC history. Again, those things can’t be connected directly, but there’s also little evidence the GP has done anything to boost the stock of the 500 outside of Indiana.

Then again, boosting the 500's national TV audience wasn't among Miles' primary goals, as he said that the GP was first and foremost about attracting more IndyCar fans "in this market."

So has the GP been a success? If the barometer is IndyCar accomplishing the goals it set out to accomplish, then the answer has to be yes. It’s undoubtedly added value to IMS and IndyCar, and in some ways, it has helped promote the series and the 500.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s been universally embraced or that there’s not still more work to be done.

There remain longtime IndyCar fans and even some within the paddock who hate watching the cars go “the wrong way” around the track. One driver who wished to remain anonymous told IndyStar recently that he likes the race more than he thought he would but is not a fan of its placement on the schedule. He’d rather it cap the season so the champion can be crowned in Indy. He added that he understands why the race is where it is on the schedule but that he doesn’t think it has a real effect on the 500.

And, of course, IndyCar and IMS would like to attract more fans and a new title sponsor to replace Angie’s List, which left two years ago.

Boles said that process is continuing but is a difficult a sell because of how the race is overshadowed by the 500.

As for attracting more fans, that’s not going to be easy, Miles admitted.

“I’d like to see a gradual increase in attendance, but the race is so weather-dependent, and we ask a lot of people in May,” Miles said. “From the grand prix to (qualifying) and the 500, that’s a lot. So we don’t expect to fill the stands, but we think it’s become a great opening act.

“Against all the objectives we set off to accomplish, we’re pleased. I believe there were people who didn't think it made sense, but I think many of those folks have been persuaded."

Follow IndyStar Motor Sports Insider Jim Ayello on Twitter and Facebook: @jimayello.