WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Watkins Glen International is hosting an IndyCar race this Labor Day weekend as a fill-in for Boston. But it won’t be just a one-time event since IndyCar officials and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the IndyCar series will also come back in 2017 and 2018.
The races mark IndyCar’s return to the famed Finger Lakes road course for the first time since 2010.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo made the announcement Thursday morning at the New York State Fairgrounds in Geddes.
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Michael Printup, president of Watkins Glen International; Jay Frye, president of IndyCar; and IndyCar driver Will Power joined Cuomo for the announcement.
This upcoming weekend’s Grand Prix at the Glen replaced the planned Grand Prix of Boston, which IndyCar announced in May was canceled.
The Grand Prix at the Glen race was originally a one-year deal that would fill the open date on the schedule.
The race is set for Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
“In the end, this was the goal of both Watkins Glen International and IndyCar – to announce a multi-year agreement. We are very much looking forward to [the] Grand Prix at the Glen, and can’t wait to get started with our efforts to grow this event moving into the 2017 season,” Printup said in the Watkins Glen news release. “Of course, this would not be possible without the outstanding support that we receive from New York State and Governor Cuomo.”
Through the I Love New York campaign, the state will commit $100,000 per year to support Watkins Glen’s promotion of the IndyCar Grand Prix
“We will participate in the advertising with Watkins Glen in this IndyCar series and we think it is going to do great things for the track, and again, for the entire region,” Cuomo said in remarks that his office provided in a Thursday email.
The state anticipates the IndyCar series will attract “tens of thousands” of race fans from across New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Canada, to upstate New York, Cuomo’s office said.
Watkins Glen completed a track-repaving project before the 2016 season started, representing the first time the track had been repaved since 1998, according to a news release on the track’s website.
“It was a $10 million effort to repave the track and the early reports are the repaving has been fantastic,” Cuomo said in remarks in the Thursday email.
Watkins Glen International has hosted nine past IndyCar races, from 1979-81 and again from 2005-10.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
