Thursday, February 15, 2007
Convention helps to cancel car race
WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com
Convention preparations require full and exclusive access to the arena for 6-8 weeks before the actual convention, so any previously scheduled events have to be canceled. One casualty of the 2008 Democratic Convention: the Grand Prix of Denver:
The Champ Car World Series on Thursday removed the Grand Prix of Denver from its schedule, ending a five-year run of the street race around the Pepsi Center. The event had been scheduled for Aug. 19. “It’s a tough event for the city to lose, and especially hard for race fans,” Pepsi Center spokesman Brian Kitts said. “They had a couple of good runs, and it’s always tough to lose a marquee event like that.”
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The Grand Prix has been in trouble for about a year, since race co-owner Bob Sutton, then CEO of Centennial-based Centrix Financial, withdrew as a local promoter of the event because of business problems. Centrix also bailed out as title sponsor. Champ Car ran the race last summer without a title sponsor, and was unable to find a replacement for this year. In a release, Champ Car cited date conflicts for this year’s race, but Kitts said the race had already been booked. Pepsi Center officials, however, informed Champ Car that the 2008 date needed to be changed because of the Democratic National Convention. Champ Car said there would be no Denver race in 2008.“We were in the process of identifying existing Champ Car promoters to step in and run the event or work with someone else,” Champ Car spokesman Eric Mauk wrote in an e-mail. “With the 2008 date unquestionably being taken away from us by the convention, it was proving difficult for someone to be enthusiastic to come in and do the race for one year.”
A political convention is a behemoth, and there will be other casualties in the future.
Posted by Matt at 10:21 PM 
If the exact same thing had happened for a Republican convention I would probably say something bad about it.