Indy's Celebration of Automobiles cancelled

The Celebration of Automobiles – the car show with a fantastic sideshow – has been discontinued, as reported below by Daniel Strohl in Hemmings Daily. Last year, those attending the car show at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the morning were treated to the Grand Prix of Indianapolis IndyCar race in the afternoon.

Here’s a link to our coverage of the 2013 and 2014 Celebration of Automobiles.

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The Indianapolis Motor Speedway‘s Celebration of Automobiles, which was initially conceived as a part of the speedway’s slate of centennial celebrations in 2011, remained a part of the speedway’s May schedule through this year, but speedway president Doug Boles said that putting on the new Grand Prix of Indianapolis, which first ran last year, has essentially taken precedence over the Celebration for 2015.

“The Celebration of Automobiles was successful that first year and we enjoyed it, so we kept it on, but the biggest factor in canceling it is its timing,” he said. “With the Grand Prix, it’s logistically pretty difficult to execute it in a weekend when we have tens of thousands here for another event. We just couldn’t figure out how to fit both in that same weekend. The Celebration was a very nice event – it was very complementary to our 2011 message – but our core is racing cars and race events.”