Indy Racing League Years
Starting for the 2002 season, the race became an Indy Racing League Indycar series event. In addition, the race distance was changed from 500 miles (800 km) to 400 miles (640 km). In a very memorable race, Tomas Scheckter overcame bickering with team owner Eddie Cheever to beat team mate Buddy Rice. The race featured wheel-to-wheel racing, albeit at much slower speeds than the CART-sanctioned events. In addition, Sarah Fisher became the first female driver to pass for the lead under green flag conditions in an Indy-style race.
The IRL was unable to rebuild the event's attendance in spite of heavy support from the Jackson, Michigan community leadership. In many cases, the attendance for supporting stock car events was as great, if not greater, than the IRL race itself.
For 2007, the race had to move dates. The Allstate 400 at the Brickyard was moved by ESPN up one week, and created a conflict. Originally the race at Michigan was to move to July 22, but after the Indy Racing League added a new event at Mid-Ohio for that date, the race was moved to the first weekend in August. The IRL was faced with the task of selling tickets for 3 events (Mid Ohio, Michigan, and Detroit) within 6 weeks of each other, at venues that are within easy driving distance of one other.
In July, 2007, ISC announced that they would not be hosting an IRL race in 2008. The track management was not offered their traditional date for 2008 due to the same constraints that led to the 2007 date. In addition, track management wanted to return to the twin 200-mile (320 km) race format in order to gain publicity, and the IRL refused to meet that request. Faced with very low attendance, as well as the task of a race only 2 weeks before a major NASCAR race, ISC terminated negotiations and announced that there would be no race in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Firestone Indy 400
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