LONG POND — From the time the checkered flag fell in July and Juan Pablo Montoya won the Pocono IndyCar 500 Fueled by Sunoco, there was speculation as to whether the IndyCar Series would be return to Pocono Raceway.
The answer finally came Thursday.
IndyCar officials released the 2015 schedule and Pocono is, indeed, on it. The 2.5-mile triangular track in Long Pond will host the Pocono IndyCar 500 weekend Aug. 22-23.
Sagging ticket sales for this year’s race, which was held July 5-6, caused Pocono president and CEO Brandon Igdalsky to consider opting out of the final year of a three-year agreement with IndyCar in 2015.
But Igdalsky and IndyCar officials were able to work things out and come up with a date later in the season.
“Talking to fans the last two years, the trouble was the Fourth of July weekend,” Igdalsky said. “Fans had other holiday plans or didn’t want to deal with traffic, that kind of stuff. So this goes to what all the fans have asked us to do.”
Now, Pocono will host the penultimate race of the 2015 season. The campaign will conclude Aug. 30 on the road course at Sonoma Raceway in California.
“You look at the last couple of races — us, Mid-Ohio, Sonoma — you’re ending the season at historic
tracks,” Igdalsky said. “We’re excited to be the final oval race.”
Igdalsky said it never came close to not having an IndyCar race at Pocono next year.
“They wouldn’t be on our schedule if we didn’t want them,” Igdalsky said. “We had great conversations. They knew where we were coming from and we knew where they were coming from. We looked at the pros and cons and it worked out for everybody.”
During a teleconference to announce the schedule, Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman Motorsports, the parent of IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, agreed that the discussions with Pocono never were contentious. He said he is glad to be able to keep the track on the schedule.
“It was a good effort between two partners,” Miles said. “I think they think that this is a pretty good place to land for them.”
Indeed, there is the potential for a driver to clinch the series championship at Pocono. More than likely, though, the Pocono race will help set up the title picture for the following week at Sonoma.
Also, Pocono will be the final leg of the IndyCar Triple Crown that also includes the 500-mile events at Indianapolis and Fontana.
Should a driver win those races, he would come to Pocono with a chance to capture the Triple Crown. Only one driver — Al Unser in 1978 — has been able to win all three 500-mile IndyCar races in a calendar year.
Interestingly, the switch to an August date is a return to when Pocono previously hosted IndyCar. When the track secured a second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in 1982, it held its IndyCar race in August until 1989, when the two sides parted ways. After a 23-year hiatus, IndyCar returned to Pocono in 2013.
Since the three-year contract with IndyCar expires in 2015, Igdalsky would not speculate on any races beyond that.
“We said going in that we were going to give it three years to prove to ourselves whether it works or not,” Igdalsky said. “The first year was pretty damn successful. This year, we had a little retraction in that. Hopefully, this year is a huge success and we can say we’ll be doing it for the next five years.”
Tickets for the 2015 Pocono IndyCar 500 are already on sale, starting at $25 for adults and $12.50 for children. Visit www.poconoraceway.com or call 1-800-RACEWAY.
Pocono will also host two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series weekends in 2015: the Pocono 400 on June 5-7 and the Pennsylvania 400 on July 31-Aug. 2.