VRR Official: Thank you everyone for showing up. It's been a busy month for VRR, and headway has been made to the fruition of a premier open wheel series for B-Spec drivers. I'm going to first address the field for the inaugural season. Rules were made to limit the number of total car entries down to 36 for the Indianapolis 500, and as of today, July 9th, 2015, 33 of those are filled. There are 28 full time entries, all of which are filled to capacity. This means that the health in the drivers market for us is optimal. The field in itself is an accomplishment and the teams and drivers deserve a round of applause for getting the ball rolling. I'll take questions about the field before we get any further.
Reporter for the Indy Sun: You mentioned the Indianapolis 500, and it's obviously going to be the biggest race all year, but will the teams be based around Indianapolis?
VRR Official: Teams at the moment are not being told to be based around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There are a couple of teams in neighboring states, Ohio, Kentucky come to mind, but teams for the most part are still assembling. I can't rule it out. Engine manufacturers will have assembly plants around Indianapolis for the construction of the powertrains, so we will still be helping out the Indy economy year round in that way.
Reporter for the New York Times: What will the international presence be in the field?
VRR Official: The VRR Straight Talk IndyCar Series has drivers from here, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Great Britain, Portugal, New Zealand, and Japan. The diversity in this field is quite remarkable, and that will certainly help us in those markets.
Reporter for the Chicago Herald: There are two female drivers in this field, and a bit of marketing has already been spotted around the Speedway itself. Where's your marketing focus as far as drivers are concerned?
VRR Official: We are using the popularity of drivers as we can to draw attention to us. Those two drivers are up there on the list of who to watch because of who they are, and that's something we can't ignore. They have a rivalry that rivals the men and we can't overlook that because that will make for great racing.
Moving on...the calendar is something that is more painstaking than the logistics of the series itself. There are so many venues to choose from, and we have had the most interesting talks as far as our future is concerned. Some places like Indianapolis will be with us for a very long time guaranteed, set in stone. Other places, like St. Pete, Cleveland, Kansas, and others are some that we have for one year and if we like what we see, and they like what they see, then we'll go further. We aren't quite finished with the calendar yet. There's still a few venues that need to put pen to paper, but once that's done, our calendar will be quite simple. We have 12 oval events spanning 12 venues, and 12 road course events spanning 11 venues. Cleveland has the distinction of holding our first double header. We have the Triple Crown, spanning Indy, Fontana and Pocono, with the person to win all three earning five million dollars. We have offered the reward for whoever wins the Daytona 500 in the RACE GTPlanet Fantasy Series and our 2016 Indianapolis 500 of 2 million dollars on top of the race winnings. We have Surfer's Paradise already beginning to organize their preparation for the season opener. It'll be a flowing calendar and a very exciting one.
Reporter from the Cincinnati Enquirer: The series has five races in this area on the calendar; Indy, Kentucky, Mid-Ohio and the double in Cleveland. What moved the VRR to do that?
VRR Official: The way we have this particular part of the calendar, the economy in these three states will have two full months of racing, and the spacing is far enough that the overlap will be very slight. The middle part of the calendar is what we're talking about here, and it'll be a great way to begin the slide into the second half of the season when we start going to places like Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, and France.
Reporter from the Detroit Free Press: The series had made talks with Michigan International Speedway and Belle Isle regarding races, yet both didn't make the cut, can you elaborate on that?
VRR Official: On the Belle Isle issue, we had concerns that safety could be an issue and that repairs needed to be done before we could further talks. While those are now ongoing, the time needed outreached our open calendar space and we are now in talks with them over 2017 and further. Michigan Speedway is in a precarious situation that they have moved their focus to the stock cars, and with the speeds they are getting, the concern for us is how we can keep our drivers from reaching 240 miles per hour, and we are working on solutions, but Michigan wanted Cleveland's 2016 date, and we couldn't negotiate further so as with Belle Isle, we are talking with them about future seasons.
Reporter from the Monterey Herald: A top tier open wheel series will finally return to Laguna Seca in 2016, and the community is ecstatic. How did the negotiations go?
VRR Official: The negotiations with Laguna Seca were a bit rocky at first, our immediate concerns being the track surface and the condition of the Corkscrew complex. After having some of the DW12s run on it an hour, we felt more comfortable with the track and negotiations went smooth. We have a long future in California, between Laguna Seca and Fontana, which was a goal for us.
Reporter from the Maison de la Presse: The VRR IndyCar Series will be visiting the Circuit Paul Armagnac late 2016. There are no French driver, so what is the expectation?
VRR Official: The circuit is the first purpose built venue in France for racing, it is a piece of racing history that gets overlooked and we want to assist them in bringing Nogaro to the fore of racing in France.
Thank you, at this time, the conference is over.
