IndyCar welcoming fans for first time
MILWAUKEE – Simon Pagenaud would love to meet you. He would love to sign an autograph.
He’d love to make the sort of connection between a champion and fan that’s not possible in most sports. To create a memory. To nurture passion.
But that’s probably not going to happen this weekend.
Road America in Elkhart Lake will host the first NTT IndyCar Series event this season open to spectators, the REV Group Grand Prix, with races Saturday and Sunday.
While that’s a big step toward normal amid the global coronavirus pandemic, the weekend will be far different from what patrons of the track and Indy-car racing there have come to expect, with a compact schedule, temperature screenings and limited access and perhaps even ticket sales at the gate cut off.
“I think it’s a very tough time we’re in right now,” said Pagenaud, the 2016 IndyCar Series champion and 2019 Indianapolis 500 winner. “We just all have to adapt. Obviously, health and safety is first.”
Working together
Road America and IndyCar have taken substantially different approaches to the start of their seasons, which logically can be traced to coronavirus statistics in each area. Through Saturday, Marion County, where IndyCar his headquartered, led Indiana with more than 11,600 positive tests and 683 deaths. Sheboygan County, in which Road America lies, was at 224 cases and four deaths.
IndyCar has been particularly cautious, operating in a bubble for the opener at Texas Motor Speedway and the Fourth of July weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Although Indy was the first combined weekend for NASCAR and IndyCar, contact between the series was extremely limited.
Road America, meanwhile, has had three weekends open to fans and well attended after its opener was held with no spectators.
“Going into an event of this scale and accommodating these precautions, it’s just part of the territory,” said Mike Kertscher, Road America’s president and general manager. “There’s challenges with everything. But being patient and being fluid and understanding each event has a little more customization given the current times, I think we’re getting through it.”