The fourth installment of the Nashville Grand Prix was primed to be a gigantic disaster.
Established in 2021, ambitious changes to the event, which raced around the Tennessee Titans’ NFL stadium as a street race for the NTT IndyCar Series through 2023, would move it from its wonky layout to a new configuration resting right in the middle of downtown Nashville in 2024.
Set amid Broadway’s hottest spots for food and music, the race would serve as the championship finale and host city for an IndyCar celebration unlike anything we’ve seen in decades. The excitement for all that was meant to unfold was nearly unparalleled; announcements were made and promotions shifted into high gear.
And then a myriad of issues related to the building of a new Titans stadium destroyed the plans crafted by race promoter Scott Borchetta and his Big Machine team. By the middle of February, IndyCar’s downtown Nashville dream race was gone before it got started.
The party in Music City was being traded for Nashville Speedway and the doldrums of Lebanon, TN, where, despite multiple attempts to make IndyCar racing a thing from 2001-2008, locals near the oval positioned 40 minutes southeast of Nashville never quite cottoned onto open-wheel racing.
Poor attendance under its previous owner/promoter and a general apathy for anything that wasn’t NASCAR made Nashville Speedway one of many tracks that fell off IndyCar’s calendar. But with the circuit’s recent and energetic new owners in Speedway Motorsports Incorporated in charge of the facility and looking to increase its use, and Borchetta’s urgent need to deliver a successful event for IndyCar, he began searching for ways to transport the vibe of a city center street race to an oval that lacked the same natural charm.
Beyond simply saving the event, the true task was to overcome low expectations for its ability to thrive where IndyCar once failed.
“It’s been a massive undertaking, more than I honestly expected,” Borchetta told RACER. “It’s the education of repeatedly telling the audience where you’ve moved the race to, and we haven’t taken anything for granted. Just the other night, my wife Sandi and I were at dinner, and we’re sitting on the patio, and the table next to us, this 10-year-old boy was talking about what a big F1 fan he was, and he was showing his big sister and her boyfriend his Ferrari hat.
“And the parents were there, and they’re talking, and I turned to Sandi, and she goes, ‘Go talk to him,’ and so I went and introduced myself and talked racing, and I invited them to come out to the speedway because they had no idea it was happening there. So, I showed him a picture of myself and Lewis Hamilton, and just talked racing for a few minutes, and they’re coming out. And the story I keep going back to is, when you get young people early enough to see their first race, it’s like seeing your first concert.
“So that’s been part of the strategy. If we’re going to really build this, it’s a heck of a lot more than just having one successful event this year. We’ve taken this thing by the horns, and I’m proud of what we’ve done so far, but the job is not done. We have a few more days to keep grinding at it.”
So far, all of the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix’s premium ticket packages have been sold, and the focus has turned to selling more general admission tickets to fill vacancies in the grandstands.
“Every Club RPM ticket is sold, every Green Room ticket is sold, every Tower Suite is sold, every Champions Club seat is sold, and every pit lane hospitality is sold,” Borchetta said. “We’ve still got a chunk of tickets in the grandstand to get sold, but it’s going to look good. If we stopped selling today, it’s going to look good, but I want it to look great. So we’re pounding the pavement. I’ve got people out at high school football games telling them about it. I’ve got people down on Broadway handing out flyers. We’re we are not lifting until the green flag.”
Importing music acts from Big Machine’s large roster of stars to perform at Nashville Speedway, along with keeping the pre-event festivities planned for Friday downtown on Broadway, was the first significant change Borchetta made.
Billed as the ‘world’s largest album release party,’ country artist Brantley Gilbert headlines ‘Freedom Friday’ after six IndyCar teams hold a pit stop competition and the streets get filled with tire smoke with the ‘Burnouts on Broadway’ event that follows.
At the track, renowned DJ Diplo, and musicians Daughtry and Riley Green will perform this weekend as Borchetta tries to establish as much of what he had planned for the heart of Nashville in the new location where the race will be held.
“We had to bring the Music City to the Grand Prix,” Borchetta said. “When we made the decision that we had to move, and it absolutely was the right decision because we wouldn’t be racing had we tried to stay downtown, and I would have had mega egg on my face. I couldn’t blame it on past management. So I had to get the race moved out there to the speedway, but I wanted to keep the esthetic of Nashville very much intact.
“Let’s keep Broadway in the mix. Let’s have the pit stop competition. Let’s keep IndyCars on Broadway. So, mission accomplished there. So then, how do we bring Nashville out to the speedway? You have to make sure we have the right entertainment, and make sure that we get the message out to the fans that this is a very fan-friendly venue. It’s super easy to navigate. As much fun as street races are, they’re not easy to navigate.
“So from a fan perspective, the fan zone is right there in front of the speedway, and you’re going to see the big iHeartCountry Stage that’s going to star so many big artists. Daughtry is going to be playing on the front stretch, and then you’ve got Diplo doing his thing going into driver introductions. We had to keep the entertainment value really high, so the minute you get to Nashville Speedway, we’ve got DJs playing from the time you walk in, interspersed with our country artists, and it won’t stop.
“And the stage will be literally right next to Turn 1. It’s not going to stop. It’s going to go right through the race. We’ll have our own little mini–Snake Pit over there. It was super important to make sure that we stayed connected to the entertainment side, because it is the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.”
It’s been rare to go more than 24 hours without seeing a new Music City GP promotional email, ticket deal offered, or social media post from Borchetta’s marketing team. The relentless efforts to inform and entice potential attendees reflects the music industry veteran’s approach to promoting dozens of acts for longer than most of the IndyCar drivers have been alive.
“It’s such a noisy world, and there’s a certain amount of repetitions you’ve got to hit with people, and you’ve got to hit the right message,” he said. “It’s not one message to send. There’s a message to that party-going college kid who wants to come and see Diplo and check out their first race. It’s a different message to the core race fan. It’s a different message to the family. It’s a different message to that young kid. And so we’ve really spent a lot of time, and I brought in some super marketing power, and we do a call every morning and go over all of our analytics, all of our creative, and we’re constantly making little adjustments.