Mark Miles often has lunch at a restaurant not far from his office at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He says he is often stopped by race fans who tell him what the Indianapolis 500 means to them. The race, for many, is still a deeply cherished tradition.
, Will Jones, Joe Jagersberger and Louis Disbrow raced the Indy 500 in 1911
Many major sporting events move from site to site, so fans do not tend to go to them every year. But they do for the Indy 500, which has been contested since 1911 on the same two-and-a-half-mile paved oval on the northwest side of Indianapolis.
Not long ago, a woman walked up to Miles, pointed to her husband, and asked Miles to guess how many consecutive Indy 500s he had attended. Answer: 73.
Mark Miles is the chief executive of IndyCar’s parent company, Hulman & Company. Credit Darron Cummings/Associated Press
“There’s nothing like that for a Super Bowl or a Final Four,” said Miles, the chief executive for Hulman & Company, the parent company of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Verizon IndyCar Series.
Because six races were not held during World Wars I and II, the 100th Indy 500 will be run May 29. Miles predicts that all of the estimated 230,000 reserved seats to the race will sell. But then what?
Some 6.71 million watched the 100th anniversary race on TV in 2011, but viewership sagged to 5.74 million two years later, only to rebound to 6.39 million last year — the first time in 10 years the Indy 500 drew more viewers than Nascar’s Coca-Cola 600, later on the same day.
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Because six races were not held during the world wars, the 100th Indy 500 will be run on May 29. Credit Robert Laberge/Getty Images
As the 16-race season begins Sunday on a street course in St. Petersburg, Fla., Miles has a goal: to avoid a similar drop in interest in the Indy 500 and the series in 2017. He said the series had the venues and the schedule to lure, and keep, ticket-buyers and viewers.
Miles, 62, grew up on the north side of Indianapolis. His father was an executive at Eli Lilly and was, Miles said, “the tightest person I’ve ever met.” So Miles listened to the race on the radio until he was a teenager, when he got in free by hiding in the trunk of a friend’s car.
He said of his hometown: “I didn’t want it to be a redneck motor head place. That was an unfair
The driver Jimmy Murphy, seated right, and his riding mechanic, Ernie Olson, posed during a practice day for the 10th Indy 500, in 1922. They went on to win the 1922 race. Credit Indianapolis Motor Speedway, via Associated Press
He gravitated to other sports, serving as chief executive of the Association for Tennis Professionals for 15 years, often catching Indy 500 telecasts while at the French Open in Paris. He also oversaw two large events in Indianapolis: the 1987 Pan American Games and the 2012 Super Bowl. He became chief executive at Hulman & Company in December 2012.
In the last 20 years, IndyCar races have often been trampled by Nascar races in TV viewership. In 2013, nine IndyCar events covering 23 hours of programming overlapped Nascar events, but those numbers have been pared to four events covering only seven hours.
In another concession to the ratings reality, Miles wanted to wrap up the series schedule by Labor Day, when he said viewership of IndyCar races, as a rule, drops 30 percent, largely because of football. Only one race will be held after Labor Day: the season-ending Sept. 18 race in Sonoma, Calif., which starts at 7:37 p.m. Eastern, between N.F.L. afternoon games and the well-watched Sunday night game.
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“We could race in October, and there are some places that would like to have us in October,” he said, “but I don’t see that being the right call.”
After 11 years, the series will return to Phoenix for a race next month, and, on Labor Day weekend, the first Grand Prix of Boston will be held on a temporary street course near the South Boston waterfront.
Of a long-discussed race on the streets of Manhattan, Miles said: “We haven’t had anybody really working on it. There are some other cities where we thought we could see more of a right direction. Point us in the right direction, and we’ll see.”
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Cars headed into Turn 2 during the Indy 500 in 1926. Credit Indianapolis Motor Speedway, via Associated Press
Miles seems to have enough on his plate as it is. Indianapolis Motor Speedway, also known as the Brickyard, used to be the province of IndyCars, a hub in May but relatively quiet the other 11 months. Much has been added in the last 25 years, including Nascar, Formula One and motorcycle races.
F1 and MotoGP have departed, but the 400-mile stock-car race still remains, with a road-course race added two years ago for IndyCars and a Red Bull air race to have its debut in October. The Rolling Stones played at the speedway’s first stand-alone concert last July.
The Brickyard has become more than just a place to watch fast cars. Carburetion Day for the 500, on May 27, the last practice before the race, includes a Journey concert, with Blake Shelton featured in a concert the day before the race.
Another concert is to be held on race day in the area known as the Snake Pit, where 30,000 people, mostly college students, are expected to buy general admission tickets, even though they will be able to see most of the race only on video boards.
They will come for the music and the experience. The experience is what drew Mark Miles to the speedway more than 40 years ago. The college students might not go to 73 in a row, but the 100th race, then the 101st in 2017, would be a good start for Miles.
“For me, it’s good enough that these college kids want to get up early and be out at I.M.S. that day,” he said. “That’s what it means to them all.”
After a pause, he added, “It’s a lot better than going to the lake on Memorial Day.”