The Associated Press reports that Indianapolis Motor Speedway is concerned that ticket sale's for July's Brickyard 400 are lagging even in comparison to last year, which was the worst in the event's history. The AP says last July's Brickyard 400 attendance estimate was 140,000 – down nearly nearly half from the estimated 270,000 that turned out for the 2007 race. IMS president and Jeff Belskus told the AP that the poor economy and high gas prices have made an impact on ticket sales, but he believes there may be too many competing NASCAR events in the Midwest as well.
"I'm in the camp that there's over saturation, too," Belskus said. "It's Truck events, it's Nationwide events, and it's Sprint Cup events. When we started this [race], we didn't have a Sprint Cup event 120 miles away in Kentucky or 150 miles away in Chicago."
To counter the downturn, track officials have adopted a new tiered ticket-pricing system for this year's race which increases the price for some tickets and lowers the price for others. However, Belskus said there is no question that the race will continue in 2012.
"Oh, yeah, it's going to be on the schedule," Belskus said.