Tickets to the historic IndyCar race in Washington, D.C., are in high demand this summer, as officials prepare the landmark event to commemorate the United States’ 250th birthday.
Penske Corporation, which owns IndyCar, revealed Tuesday that it received 288,000 ticket requests for the 100,000 free tickets offered to the public. Freedom 250’s Grand Prix race is set to be held Aug. 22 and 23, featuring cars streaking around iconic strips in the capital city.
“The ticket request process ended last Sunday at midnight; it went for nine days, from Friday till Sunday, and there were 288,000 ticket requests,” Bud Denker, chairman of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, told RACER. “If we’d left it open five more days, we’d be up to Indy 500 numbers.”
“Now we’re going back to my office to start putting the filtration process into place in terms of who gets the tickets, because we can’t accommodate 280,000 people. Even if we divide that by 140,000 people a day, we just can’t process that many people happily through magnetometers,” he added. “When it’s all said and done, you’ll have over 120,000 people per day present for this event, both Saturday and Sunday.”
Freedom 250, the organization spearheaded by Trump to mark the semiquincentennial, is leading the event.
Denker said half those given free tickets will witness the Freedom 250 from inside the track. The others will watch from outside the circuit.
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Organizers say the 1.7-mile seven-turn race course will go around the National Mall, with cars roaring past stretches featuring the U.S. Capitol and Pennsylvania and Independence avenues. The Indianapolis 500 race track is 2.5 miles, though IndyCar tracks span from 1 to 4 miles long.
“When we think about America’s 250 years, it’s really hard to think about anything that’s more American than cars. It’s been said, Americans have always — we had love affairs with their cars, and this has been the center of innovation in ours in a major, major industry,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in March. “So it’s a combination of both history and horsepower that’s going to be happening here.”