As someone who frequented the Charm City, Baltimore, just about every summer in the '90s to watch the Orioles play in their spectacular ballpark, I just had to sit up and listen when the news was broken that a group is planning to bring the IRL to the Inner Harbor in 2011.
The group who brought the plan to the city's government is called Baltimore Racing Development. BRD has already come up with a full-on proposal (which can be found in pieces on the sidebar HERE) which has already been brought under serious consideration by not only the City of Baltimore, but the Maryland state government.
According to reports:
Maryland's interest is serious enough that Terry Hasseltine, director of the state's office of sports marketing, traveled to St. Petersburg in April to observe the "Streets of St. Petersburg" race.
"The stands were packed around every corner. People were just buzzing throughout the area," Hasseltine said. "There had to be at least 110,000 on that final day."
Hasseltine said the Baltimore event could draw 40,000 to 70,000 people a day before the final race. By comparison, he said, "The Preakness is a one-day activity."
One of the folks you would expect to be most against this plan, the city councilman who represents that bit of Baltimore, seems to be pretty well behind it. His only concern is the impact of noise on residents who live not-too-far from the proposed track, and that's a pretty simple thing to fix.
A good, detailed report from the Baltimore Sun, with an embedded video from the local CBS affiliate, can be found HERE.
If this race goes off two years from now, count me in on the spectator list!
Update!
For those too lazy to click all the links and such, here's a map of the track included in the BRD proposal. I think they have the turn markers mixed up; from what I'm reading, Turn 1 would be the hairpin between Oriole Park and M&T Bank Stadium.
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