Beyond the Flag
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IndyCar: Five reasons destroying Walt Disney World Speedway was a mistake

By Asher Fair

24 Jan 1999: A view of the cars during the Disney World 200 IRL race at Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Florida. Mandatory Credit: Andy Lyons /Allsport
24 Jan 1999: A view of the cars during the Disney World 200 IRL race at Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Florida. Mandatory Credit: Andy Lyons /Allsport /
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LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL – MARCH 19: In this handout photo provided by Disney Parks, in a special moment for Magic Kingdom guests, the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, streaked across the skies above, Cinderella Castle (Photo by Mariah Wild/Disney Parks via Getty Images)
LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL – MARCH 19: In this handout photo provided by Disney Parks, in a special moment for Magic Kingdom guests, the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels, streaked across the skies above, Cinderella Castle (Photo by Mariah Wild/Disney Parks via Getty Images) /

Media attention

As referenced in the slide about Walt Disney World being one of the if not the most popular tourist destination in the world, there would have been a lot of benefits for both IndyCar and to Disney had an IndyCar race been scheduled annually at Walt Disney World Speedway before it shut down and was demolished.

Why? Because when you associate anything with Disney, the media is going to be all over it. And when the thing which you are associating with Disney is IndyCar, which is growing as America’s premier open-wheel racing series featuring the fastest drivers in the world, big things happen and all of a sudden you have a story that every news outlet wants to be the first to report and give a million takes on.

When you put all of that together, you get what promises to be a remarkable event that perhaps even produces a sell-out crowd, and that’s even if the track would have added more than the 30,000 seats it had when the final Indy Racing League race won by Robbie Buhl was held there back in 2000.

Media attention isn’t always a good thing, which makes good media attention all the more valuable. That is exactly what an IndyCar return to Walt Disney World Speedway would have done on so many levels, and that’s even before the green flag would have flown. However, with the track no longer there, that won’t happen unless another track is build, which seems very unlikely.