In a somewhat surprise announcement, MotoGP rightsholders Dorna and Indianapolis Motor Speedway revealed that the circuit has signed on to host a MotoGP event for another three years. IMS president Jeff Belskus was in attendance at the Misano MotoGP race this weekend in order to finalize details and sign the agreement. The announcement is a bit of surprise in that the usual practice with MotoGP circuit contract renewals is that they are done on the weekend of the circuit’s race in order to maximize publicity, and when nothing was announced during last weekend’s Red Bull Indy GP, there were rumors that the circuit would be dropped from the MotoGP schedule for 2012. But the surprise is pleasant nonetheless, with the U.S. apparently on course to reach the same status as Spain in 2013 with three races on the MotoGP calendar if/when the planned Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, comes to fruition.
Although attendance at the Indy event had been declining, this year’s event reversed that trend slightly, with a Sunday figure of 64,151 up slightly from last year’s 62,794. While that is still down from the 75,130 figure given for 2009 and 91,064 for the inaugural 2008 event, that any reversal of downward trends in the current difficult economy was possible is hopefully a good sign. Still, for a facility accustomed to handling crowds well over 200,000, the attendance trends had many thinking that IMS was not going to renew its contract with MotoGP.
The announcement states that the Indianapolis race will take place on August 17-19, 2012, one week earlier than usual. There have been rumors that Dorna would like to have the races in the U.S. closer together in order to ease the travel costs of shipping the MotoGP circus overseas (although the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca event only features the MotoGP class), but there are multiple obstacles to overcome. Grouping the Texas MotoGP race close to Indy would subject the attendees to the brutal summer heat of August in that region; it’s hoped that cooler heads (pun intended) will prevail and a different plan will be taken there.