'A perfect partnership': How Penske, IndyCar aim to turn around Milwaukee Mile's misfortune

When IndyCar and Penske Entertainment officials helped breathe life back into the series’ history at Iowa Speedway, their vision was clear: A hyper-local sponsor to bankroll a top-notch entertainment weekend, more suits than the Indianapolis 500, book some of the most popular country artists and a short oval with a reputation for exciting racing to hold it all together.

“Give this two or three years, and it can be the Sturgis of Iowa or the Lollapalooza of Iowa,” Penske Corp. president Bud Denker told IndyStar in July, hours before the weekend’s back-half of a doubleheader. “Give it time.”

Within five years of Iowa pulling what Denker characterized as "our diehard 6,000-7,000 fans" on race day before the pandemic, the event hosted more than 85,000 this year -- though that included several thousands of free tickets and a couple pockets totaling a few thousand Hy-Vee employees each day. At capacity -- suites, temporary grandstands and all -- Iowa could now host 40,000 fans. Denker sees that as a goal in the not to distant future for an event rumored to cost at least $20 million to put on.

It was an obvious – and frequent – question Monday, across multiple press conferences, as IndyCar rolled out its 17-race schedule for 2024 that includes a doubleheader at an oval track it hadn’t been to in eight years, revitalizing a historic race weekend that had been dying a slow death for a decade or more before that.

Will IndyCar’s return to the Milwaukee Mile be the next Iowa?

The short answer: No.

The longer one: No, because those with the keys don’t think it needs to be in order to succeed. What it did need was Roger Penske and company armed with a checkbook, eager employees and an eye for detail. Because after watching Michael Andretti’s own short-lived marketing and race promotion arm fail to do more than tack on four years to an inevitable conclusion with his promotion of the event from 2012-15, IndyCar brass didn’t want to entrust anyone else with the reins.

Wisconsin’s State Fair Board will serve as the promoter of next year’s penultimate weekend on the calendar and will handle big-picture items like planning concessions and selling tickets – things that are done better by those on the ground armed with decades of institutional knowledge.

But Penske, Denker, Penske Entertainment Corp. president Mark Miles and vice-president Michael Montri will be deeply ingrained in the fine details of this resuscitation project.

“The State Fair owns the track and they run the facility. They had a million people here for this last year’s state fair, so we don’t have to worry about anything other than the racing product itself,” Penske told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week. “They can help us on the ticketing and on the promotion. You could almost say we’re co-promoters, if you want to put it that way.

“Before, you had promoters coming in and coming out, and we’re committed. It’s important we take the series to places that have long-staying capabilities, which you have here. We’re coming back with a better product. To find an oval that has the infrastructure that we have here, along with a partner that will help us promote this, that doesn’t happen, so I think that’s one of the reasons why we felt this was really a perfect combination and partnership.”

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In many ways, this track, this partnership and this Labor Day 2024 race weekend is still very much a work in progress. Last December, the Wisconsin State Building Commission approved nearly $3 million in public and private funding (as well as money from the State Fair Park) to give The Mile a much-needed face lift. Phase One took place before its return to the national racing stage in August with the NASCAR Trucks series.

Phase Two, which includes a complete resurfacing and upgrade of pitlane, along with a resurface of 100 feet of the bumpy front-stretch, begins in early-October. It was the promise of those fixes, along with SAFER barrier additions, that helped the track and the State Fair Board get a second look from Penske after an extensive inspection last fall.

“We had heard there was interest, and that (the Park and the state) were prepared to invest in the Fairgrounds, and in particular, the track,” Miles said Monday. “And so, in true Roger Penske fashion, we found ourselves walking the track and looking at every linear foot of wall or SAFER barrier and fencing and restrooms and laid out a vision about the level and quality of upgrades that would need to be made to make it appropriate for us.

“At every turn, the state was there, interested in helping make that happen ... and I don’t know that that was true the last time around here in Milwaukee. I think we’re just in a position to make sure it meets everybody’s expectations. The ingredients came together, and it seemed like the right time, and we’re happy to be part of it.”

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Questions on the finer details of the weekend, though, are yet to be determined.

Will there be big-name concert actsd?

Penske (via the Journal Sentinel): “I’m not sure we can afford the entertainment they had at Iowa. We’re going to bring the racing, but we do have an entertainment capability here. Hopefully the State Fair Board, that’s one of the things they can bring to the party, to have some entertainment on Saturday night.”

Will the race weekend lock-in an active, consumer-facing sponsor?

Wisconsin State Fair Park executive director and CEO Shari Black: “That’s something that’s a team effort that we’ll be working on with IndyCar.”

Added Penske: “(Hy-Vee) has been the best we’ve ever seen, coming in and promoting the (Iowa) race, so we would hope to have a sponsor that takes it to that level in this market.”

Will ticket prices, like those (particularly in Year Two) at Iowa, be some of the priciest on the calendar, with no free tickets for young fans and two-day passes that range from nearly $200 to well over $400 just for a reserved bleacher seat?

Penske: “We want it to be reasonable. As we do (for the Indy 500), we’ll have higher prices, and then we’ll have lower prices. And then you look at the corporate sponsorship and those people they want to entertain there, and that’s another opportunity for us to bring in revenue.”

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In total, it leaves little in an identity for the weekend at the outset. What it does have, officials reiterated countless times Monday, is a relatively blank canvas equipped with history in the series that’s unmatched outside IMS – 114 major American open-wheel races to date during its 120-year history – and what appears to be a loud, passionate following on social media that for years have wished for its return.

Now, it’s Penske and company’s job to turn that passion into butts in seats. Years ago, this race weekend struggled to pull 10,000 fans for a single race, at a time when Road America – the National Park of Speed that lives an hour or so north and draws a strong weekend-long camping crowd each June – was not on the IndyCar calendar.

In 2024, that pocket of Wisconsin will attempt to sustain three IndyCar races, six years after former Road America president George Bruggenthies called The Mile’s return “impossible”, eight years after it struggled to draw even 10,000 fans out to the 1-mile oval in West Allis for a single race and just one year after the national racing scene’s return last month pulled just 15,000 for the Trucks.

“In the executive residence, there’s actually a poster from (one of the first American open-wheel races at The Mile) 1939, and things look a little different than today,” Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said Monday. “But any time you have a chance to redo history and take this into a whole different level, you have to take advantage of that. A lot of people should be thanked for that, but the history of this organization and this track is why we’re here today.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Roger Penske: IndyCar 'committed', invested in Milwaukee Mile return