IndyCar Series closer to returning to PIR

Phoenix International Raceway and the Verizon IndyCar Series have a day and date — Saturday evening, April 2, 2016 — and a race distance — 250 miles — but not yet a final deal for the open-wheel tour to return to the Avondale oval for the first time since 2005.

Several important issues, including specific financial details, remain unresolved.

“This is the closest we’ve been (to a deal) in 10 years,” PIR President Bryan Sperber told azcentral sports.

“We working hard on it but it’s not a done deal. There have been things we’ve worked hard on in the past that didn’t (happen).”

If it happens, 250 miles would be the longest IndyCar race ever at PIR, and its first major night race since 2010.

The April 2 date would be three weeks after PIR’s March 13 CampingWorld.com 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. PIR would aggressively promote the IndyCar event to fans throughout the NASCAR weekend, including displays and, possibly, driver autograph sessions.

Any agreement likely is several weeks away, although IndyCar CEO Mark Miles has said he’d like to announce next year’s schedule by this season’s end. Sperber plans to attend the championship finale, Aug. 30 in Sonoma, Calif., to gauge how much support team and series sponsors would commit to a PIR race. IndyCar doesn’t guarantee event promoters several million dollars in TV rights fees, as NASCAR does, so corporate ticket and hospitality sales and marketing promotions are key to an event’s financial success.

A LOOK BACK: 2005 INDYCAR RACE AT PIR

The last time PIR and IndyCar had meaningful conversations, in 2012, the series’ then-standard sanction fee of $1.5 million was considered too high to make a race financially viable. That was before Miles became CEO. Jay Frye, a former NASCAR Cup team executive, now is chief revenue officer for IndyCar’s parent company and has been the point man in negotiations with Sperber.

“I think there’s genuine enthusiasm on both sides,” Frye told azcentral sports. “Phoenix is very important to the league, our partners and fans. We’re making every attempt to explore every option to go back there.”

PIR was built in 1964 with IndyCars in mind and has hosted 61 races. But PIR’s event, and IndyCar in general, lost popularity because of the long CART-IRL split as the two groups competed to control the series. They reunified in 2008 but had long since been overtaken by NASCAR as America’s most popular type of motorsport.

IndyCar has already struck a deal to return to another traditional venue next year, Road America, in Elkhart Lake, Wis., absent from the schedule since 2007. And a new Labor Day street course race in Boston has been announced. But the status of four other races on this year’s calendar — Milwaukee, New Orleans, Pocono, Pa., and Fontana, Calif. — is uncertain.

Many drivers and team owners, including 16-time Indianapolis 500 winning car owner Roger Penske, have long called for a return to PIR.

“That’s a place we need to be,” Penske said.

“This (PIR) is our track,” said three-time Indy 500 and PIR winner Johnny Rutherford, the series’ pace car driver. “It was built for us.”