Mark Miles: We must redouble effort to grow Brickyard

INDIANAPOLIS — Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Co. which owns Indianapolis Motor Speedway, said the Brickyard 400 remains an important event to the company although recent attendance shortfalls culminated in the smallest estimated attendance in the event’s 23-year history Sunday.

The Indianapolis Star estimated the crowd at about 50,000, an optically horrific scene for a track that seats roughly 250,000 and hosted an estimated 350,000 for the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 in May. NASCAR announced in 2015 that it had reached five-year sanctioning agreements with all of its Sprint Cup venues.

“It’s a big place,” Miles told Paste BN Sports. “When you use the whole stands, it takes a really big crowd. It’s an event that’s important to us. I think it’s important to NASCAR and to the NASCAR paddock, so we are just going to redouble the effort to grow it.”

Miles said he still thinks the track will reach the company goal of 600,000 attendees at the speedway this year. In excess of 477,000 attended events here in May. The track is slated to host a Red Bull Air Race for the first time on Oct. 1-2.

“I think we’ll get right at that 600.000 number for the year,” he said. “I think the heat has been a deterrent today. Normally I don’t worry a lot about heat. I worry about wet and rain and lightning but clearly it (was) really hot today and that’s had an effect in the attendance. We are going to keep working harder and really up our game so, really, we can do justice to May here at the Motor Speedway and focus more energy and resources on the Brickyard as well. We will build from here.”

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