NEW TURN FOR INDYCAR FALLOUT
Nearly a year after the Boston Grand Prix folded, several hundred ticket buyers are still owed refunds while newly released documents show the bankrupt promoters of the IndyCar race are blaming the ticket fiasco on a prominent fundraising firm that worked for Gov. Charlie Baker’s campaign.
A total of just 1,180 ticket buyers have received refunds through Attorney General Maura Healey’s office, which negotiated a deal with the national IndyCar organization to pony up $925,000 to pay for refunds. Baker fundraising firm blamed for ticket fiasco
Those ticket buyers got back a total of $700,000, according to a spokeswoman for Healey’s office. Another 300 ticket holders are still owed money. They did not respond to letters from the AG’s office notifying them that refunds were available, a Healey spokeswoman said.
The new figures provided to the Herald confirm that the promoters and the city vastly overstated support for the race. The promoters claimed at one point they had sold 22,000 tickets. But the actual number of ticket buyers was about 3,600, according to bankruptcy records. Some race fans bought multiple tickets, but it still doesn’t approach the estimates the Grand Prix claimed.
The collapse of the race has become a major political liability for Mayor Martin J. Walsh, the chief IndyCar cheerleader who is now up for re-election.
Newly released documents also show the Grand Prix alleges that Boston crowdfunding website fundraise.com, which handles Baker’s campaign fundraising, was hired partly because of its political and insider connections.
“After checking FR’s references, including their touting of their work for the campaign of Governor Charles Baker, BGP entered into the agreements with FR,” said the attorney for Boston Grand Prix, Michael J. Goldberg, in a letter to the Attorney General’s office.
The letter was written last year but just publicly released by the AG’s office.
The merchant agreement with fundraise.com “played a substantial role in exposing Massachusetts consumers to risk” because it did not hold money in reserve when the race collapsed, Goldberg wrote.
That ill-fated decision ended up leaving racing fans owed more than $1.7 million for useless tickets after the promoters canceled the race in April 2016.
But an attorney for fundraise.com strongly rebuts those allegations, saying they are “demonstrably false” and noting the company returned some $400,000 in refunds to ticket buyers.
Race promoter CEO John Casey “expressly assured fundraise.com that the monies distributed would be held by Boston Grand Prix until such time as all appropriate permits had been optioned,” said the company’s attorney, David Rich, in a statement to the Herald.