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IndyCar confirmed at Road America in 2017

Track president George Bruggenthies revealed that the Verizon IndyCar Series will be returning to Road America next year, following “likely the largest event ever held here.”

Start: Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet leads

Start: Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet leads

General Motors

Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet
Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet
Podium: race winner Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet, second place Tony Kanaan, Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, third place Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda
Race action
Graham Rahal, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda
Helio Castroneves, Team Penske Chevrolet
Race winner Will Power, Team Penske Chevrolet
Simon Pagenaud, Team Penske Chevrolet

Today’s IndyCar race was the first time Indy cars had competed at the 4.048-mile road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisc., since the Champ Car World Series event in 2007.

And despite heavy rain until around 7.30am on raceday, there was a large crowd on hand to witness Will Power’s Penske-Chevrolet beating Tony Kanaan’s Ganassi-Chevy to the checkered flag by less than eight-tenths of a second.

Said Bruggenthies: “It’s worked out tremendously considering the weather this morning.

"I have to congratulate the whole Road America staff and all the operations here, who all worked very hard preparing. I think we delivered, the crowd came out and I think they’ll be back.

“We’d love to invite the series back and we have a contract for June 25th in 2017 and that’s really exciting to announce.”

Asked to comment on crowd numbers, Bruggenthies said it would be “a couple of days” before true figures were in, but stated: “I know they probably exaggerated crowd numbers in the early days but I talked to a couple of people from my board of directors today, and they say this is likely the largest event ever hosted by Road America, so that’s really something.

“It was very exciting. The fans obviously wanted it and we’d been been working on it the last several years with Mark Miles [CEO of Hulman & Company, IndyCar’s owner]. The stumbling block was really the date, but we put that together last July and here it is and it was a great event.”

There were a lot of local sponsors, people we’d known a long time.”

Jay Frye, IndyCar’s president of competition and operations, stated: “We had a tremendous event weekend here at Road America and we’re certainly looking forward to the Verizon IndyCar Series returning next year on June 25.

“The fan support and hospitality since we arrived has been phenomenal and we can’t thank George Bruggenthies and his entire staff at Road America enough for making this such a special event for IndyCar.

“We can’t wait to come back next year and do it again.”

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