IndyCar race in Washington receives 288,000 ticket requests for 100,000 free seats
Penske Corporation reported 288,000 requests for 100,000 free tickets to the Aug. 22-23 Freedom 250 Grand Prix. Organizers will select recipients and expect more than 120,000 attendees each day.
Washington ExaminerPenske Corporation, which owns IndyCar, announced Tuesday that 288,000 people requested tickets for the 100,000 free admissions offered to the public for the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. The two-day event is scheduled for Aug. 22 and 23 on a 1.7-mile, seven-turn course that circles the National Mall and passes the U.S. Capitol and Pennsylvania and Independence avenues.
Ticket allocation process Bud Denker, chairman of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, said the nine-day request period that ended at midnight Sunday produced far more applications than the available seats. Denker stated that staff will now apply a filtration process because the venue cannot accommodate 280,000 people and cannot process that volume through security screening each day.
He added that final attendance is projected to exceed 120,000 people per day on both Saturday and Sunday, with half of ticket holders seated inside the circuit and the rest viewing from outside the track.
Event background The race is organized to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary. Organizers described the course length as shorter than the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway but within the typical 1-to-4-mile range used by IndyCar events.
