Last weekend’s IndyCar event on the streets of Markham, Ontario, Canada got off to a rough start.
Track construction delays forced Friday’s planned sessions to be postponed to the following day, giving fans who showed up for the first day of the event no racing to watch whatsoever.
Green Savoree Racing Promotions, an experienced IndyCar event promoter and the promoter of the Markham weekend, issued very few statements during the weekend. And the messages that were disseminated offered no apology for the circumstances.
The president of the event Jeff Atkinson spoke on the Wednesday following the event, and offered a belated apology to fans that were in attendance.
“We know we disappointed a lot of the people that were here on our Ontario Honda Dealers present Free Fam Friday, and for that we’re sorry,” said Atkinson. “We’re sorry that we weren’t ready to have race cars on the track on Friday.
“We missed the mark on our Friday offering. We know our fans enjoyed our vendors and our exhibitor area, but there’s a lot of stuff we continue to improve on, and we will moving forward.
“We’ll be talking to our fans and our festival goers, getting their feedback and continuing to build this event in Markham because we know this venue is much easier to get to for many of our attendees that come to the event.”
It is not uncommon for inaugural street course events to run into delays, and the logistics of constructing a new track under tight time constraints often brings unique challenges.
Green Savoree is not new to organizing street races, however, with the long-running St. Petersburg Grand Prix and IndyCar’s previous Canada race location Toronto both falling under the promoter’s umbrella.
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