The NTT IndyCar Series will hold its third race in the shadows of the Tennessee Titans football stadium this August at the Music City Grand Prix, and the plan is for the event to continue despite construction for a new stadium receiving final approval this week.
The new stadium will be built in the current stadium’s parking lot, which is currently the location of the paddock and pit lane when IndyCar comes to town.
That means the current layout of the street circuit will no longer be available, and a new location will need to be found within the downtown Nashville area starting with the 2024 edition of the event.
Plans to build the new stadium have been making their way through the approval process for some time, and the organizers of the Music City Grand Prix have been making their own plans to relocate almost as soon as the first event was held in 2021.
Now that they are certain the race will be forced to relocate to make way for the new stadium, event organizers are assuring fans that the event will continue on interrupted.
“We’ve been prepared for this,” Nashville GP CEO Jason Rittenberry told RACER. “And we’ve been planning with [circuit designer] Tony Cotman and myself and IndyCar and have been meeting and discussing and working on a plan for ‘24 and beyond.
“We are in the process of signing a new three-year extension with IndyCar, so we will continue the race and it will be a new course, but it will still be in downtown Nashville.
“The stadium and construction obviously is going to make things a little more challenging for us. But we have full support from the city, from the mayor, and we are moving forward.
“Our goal is to make some announcements prior to our event to share with the world what our plan is moving forward, but we’ve just got a few things to get signed and executed before we can do that.
“The good news is the race isn’t going anywhere. The city wants us here, IndyCar wants to be here, and we want to continue promoting this event, so we’re not going anywhere. We’re just going to make things a little more exciting in the future.”
The event has been viewed as a success since its addition to the calendar in 2021, even if the first year brought a few teething issues that led to some grandstands not being assembled until the middle of the race weekend.
A new three-year extension would align with the construction duration of the new stadium, which is expected to last from 2024 through the beginning of 2027.
The final Music City Grand Prix on the current layout will take place in four months’ time on August 6.
