TMS concedes regional rights in new IndyCar deal. What Texas city could series go to?

IndyCar will be returning to Texas Motor Speedway for at least the next four years, the track announced in a news release Thursday.

But TMS does not have exclusive territorial rights. That means IndyCar is free to race elsewhere within the region, a concession TMS made after IndyCar reduced its sanctioning fees.

“There are no regional or territorial restrictions,” Gossage said. “There have been previously [in agreements], but IndyCar didn’t want to do that so we worked something out to protect us.

“They’re free to run wherever. They talked to me exclusively about a desire to run in San Antonio in a street race.

“You don’t want anybody running in your ‘backyard,’ but we made a business deal for Texas. They have the freedom to do that, though we’d rather them not. Oklahoma, San Antonio, Austin, Houston … they’re all important markets for us.”

But Gossage understands IndyCar’s desire to grow the sport with more street races in cities such as San Antonio.

Still, this became a sticking point that could’ve ended the relationship that started when TMS opened in 1997.

“It was a big hurdle in the sense that it was a deal breaker,” Gossage said. “Then they came back and said, ‘How about this?’ They changed the deal, the financial aspect of it, so it became a completely different negotiation.

“So we’re protected. We always find common ground. I know we want them here and they tell us they want to come here. It’s the longest continuous event on the schedule besides the Indy 500.”

Financial terms were not released.

As stated, though, the two sides are going on 22 years and now have an agreement in place through at least 2022.

TMS hoped to get a more favorable date – the race following the Indianapolis 500 – but that didn’t come to fruition. Instead, TMS will be the date two weeks following the Indy 500.

The 2019 IndyCar race is scheduled for June 8, and the track announced that DXC Technology will remain the title sponsor for next season.

Gossage is pleased to have this deal worked out and start focusing on selling 2019 season tickets and the fall NASCAR race weekend in November.

“My gut told me all along we were going to work something out,” Gossage said. “At the same time, we were prepared to part ways if they simply said we cannot give you this territorial exclusivity and didn’t [come down on the price]. The answer would’ve been, ‘Good luck to you.’ They came to us with a solution with how to address that some and it was OK.

“The bottom line is should we take a hit at the gate cause of the race run somewhere else, it’s not going to kill us. We have some protection from it.”