Indy Cars lwill be performing in South Boston (MA) water front over the Labor Day weekend of 2016. (Credit: Verizon Indy Car photo.)

By Lou Modestino

There’s been a lot of excitement all over New England about the May 22 announcement of the Grand Prix of Boston which will bring the IRL Indy Cars to The Hub on Labor Day weekend 2016 to run on an improvised road course on Boston’s waterfront, much like this weekend’s Indy Car event held at another improvised street course in Belle Isle Park in Detroit, Michigan. Since the Indy Racing League merged with the Championship Auto Racing Tour, the Indy Cars raced on ovals. Now there are now only six oval races on the IRL schedule this year.

The first one was the Indy 500 at the Indiana,Texas Motor Speedway, then Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, CA, The Milwaukee Mile in Wisconsin , Iowa Speedway and Pocono. There are a total of eight road races this year at NOLA Motorsports Park in Louisiana, The Streets of Long Beach, CA, GP of Indy on the road course, Belle Isle, Streets of Toronto, Mid-Ohio and Sonoma Raceway in CA.The Labor Day 2016 date is the final Verizon Indy Car Series and the event will determine the Indy Car Champion. NBC will be televising the event that weekend via the NBC Sports Network as well as NBC.

We got a look the 2 1/4 mile Boston Grand Prix road course with some 11 total turns around the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in the South Boston Seaport. Some of streets are new in the South Boston Business Center. This writer grew up in this neighborhood on West Third Street between B and C Street so I’m very familiar the area. With some 15 months to go before the Verizon Indy Cars get here, expect to see lots of hype and advertising in the Boston area media in order to sell tickets. We are also planning to do a lot of coverage of the event.