Honda Indy Toronto Returns A Success
by Scott A. Sumner
Thunder Bay Business
For many years I made the trip to the Indy Car race in Toronto. This year the trip was made even easier with Porter Airlines and their new service from Thunder Bay to the Toronto Island Airport. You land minutes away from the race site and in fact I watched their planes land from my race vantage point. Last season with the amalgamation of the former Champ Car World Series and the Indy Racing League the event was not held in Toronto. This year it was back as a IRL event thanks mostly to Michael Andretti of Andretti Green who bought the race. The new Honda Indy Toronto as well as the first race of the year at St Petersburg are owned by the Andretti team. “ Toronto is just too important of a race to not have on the schedule so we made sure it would come back this year.” said Michael Andretti.
Open racing in North America has been around for along time and it was great to see the series merge and form one strong entity with 23 car entries and 17 races on the schedule including the famed Indy 500!
It was interesting getting an inside look at the Danica Patrick team of Andretti Green racing. Danica is the only female driver in the series and one of 4 drivers for Andretti Green. Other drivers are Marco Andretti, Tony Kanaan and Hideki Mutoh. They also have two drivers in the feeder series Indy Lights. Indy Lights has 18 drivers each race weekend and is a great addition to the event. Running a Indy car team is not cheap with an annual budget of $6 to 8 million for each driver. There is the drivers which make around $1.5 million, 2 cars at about $1million each, as well as large haulers, a staff of 14 mechanics as well as others in the areas of public
relations, management and so on. When the Andretti Green team pulls into Toronto they have 14 semi tractor trailer units and large motor home buses. There is a complement of almost 100 people. The equipment needed includes large parts back up, tools, on track pit services as well as food capabilities to feed such a large contingent. The Andretti Green team stay in hotels but many teams are right at the track in their luxurious motor homes.
This years event seemed the best organized of all my times at the Toronto races. The new series had great flair with fireworks, driver introductions and even KISS founder Gene Simmons in attendance. There were also some familiar events from the past like the OLG sponsored concert series and Rocket Boys stunt motorcycle show. Both of these are my favourites especially seeing Sass Jordan sing her hits.
This years event saw Dario Franchitti of target Chip Ganassi Racing win the race. Canada’s Paul Tracy and this year’s Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves were involved in a tangle up after leading for quite a while which put them both out. The large crowd on hand chanted Helio
Sucks as the Thrill from West Hill Paul Tracy was the local favourite.
The Honda Toronto Indy is definitely an event to see especially if you have an interest in automobiles. You will see many interesting people, cars of all kind and experience the thrill of a major motorsports event!
