TORONTO -- The Honda Indy Toronto is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and while that makes it one of the most stable and long-running events on the Verizon IndyCar Series calendar, much has changed over the past three decades.
If you attended the race in the early years, when it was known as the Molson Indy, you wouldn't recognize the town or the track. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the world, with a population now approaching seven million. Much of the development is in the form of high-rise housing, and even though the race track runs through the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition, it couldn't avoid the urban sprawl, with construction of a new luxury hotel forcing the most extensive changes to the racing layout since 1995.
The changes made back then opened up the track and addressed concerns resulting from a 1994 crash in which driver Bryan Herta fractured his pelvis. This year's changes are in roughly the same place, but they are set to have the opposite effect, with the racing line through Turns 10 and 11 that close out the lap barely wide enough to accommodate a single Indy car.
The track surface is also bumpier than ever, and changes to curbs and the moving of a tire barrier in Turn 8 also raised concerns from the drivers. But the biggest potential safety hazard is the pit lane, which has been moved to the opposite side of the track (driver's left), a change that could place mechanics changing right-side tires in serious jeopardy.
All that resulted in a contentious 35-minute drivers' meeting to kick off the weekend, and potential changes for race day could include moving the start of the race to the much longer back straight.
"Changes like that to a racetrack can have a larger effect than meets the eye, so we'll just have to see how it goes once we get out there," remarked IndyCar Series points leader Simon Pagenaud before practice.
The event has changed in other ways from the glory days. Molson's in-house promotional company, Molstar Sports and Entertainment, papered the GTA with posters and flyers and the event had a strong television presence until Molson pulled out in 2006.
The CART-IRL split failed to kill off the Toronto race, though it wasn't run in the reunification year of 2008. But the event is a shadow of its former self, when it routinely drew three-day crowds of 170,000, making it the second largest sporting event in Canada. The recruitment of Honda Canada in 2009 in the role of title sponsor to replace Molson helped matters, but Toronto race crowds are maybe half of what they used to be.
Some of that can be attributed to a lesser Canadian presence in Indy car racing. Scott Goodyear, now a television announcer for ABC, was a big draw in the early days of the race, but it was the arrival of Paul Tracy and Greg Moore into the CART-sanctioned Indy car series in the first half of the 1990s that really boosted the sport's popularity in Canada. Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier and Alex Tagliani also played important roles as prominent Canadian Indy car drivers, a mantle now taken by James Hinchcliffe.
The Toronto native (and Honda driver) has been a ubiquitous presence promoting the event in local media in recent weeks, and he's pleased that the "Indy" is back in its traditional mid-July date after attendance dipped a year ago when the race was run a month earlier to accommodate the city's hosting of the Pan-Am Games.
"I've heard lots of good things about the race this year, about ticket sales and corporate sales and things like that," Hinchcliffe told reporters earlier this week. "We're coming off having to move around the date last year and working around this hotel being built, so I'm looking at this as a fresh start for the race.
"I'm looking forward to doing my bit to make this one of the great races again."
The race has certainly produced its share of memorable on-track action over the past 30 years, and the changes made to the circuit this year are likely to make the event even more of a crash-fest than usual.
Bobby Rahal won the inaugural event in 1986, but it was his longtime rival Michael Andretti who stamped his authority on Toronto, winning seven times between 1989 and 2001.
Tracy is the only Canadian to have won the race, triumphing in 1993 and during his championship season of 2003, when he elicited a roar from the crowd by announcing, "My name is Paul, and I am Canadian!" from the podium to mimic a popular Molson ad campaign of the era.
Among active drivers, Scott Dixon, Sebastien Bourdais and Will Power are two-time Toronto winners, while Josef Newgarden of Ed Carpenter Racing is the defending champion.
Newgarden, who is coming off his first win of the 2016 season one week ago at Iowa Speedway, confirmed that the changes to the track are a major topic of conversation among drivers and teams.
"I think we're going to have to ease into it," Newgarden said. "The last three corners are trickier than last year -- a lot tighter, with slower speeds, which will hopefully help the run up to Turn 1 and create more passing. That would be the benefit if we find one.
"We talked in the drivers' meeting about how we are going to prepare for a two-wide start, and I'm not sure what they are going to do," he added. "They were waiting to see feedback from [practice] Session 1, but I'd be surprised if they switch it to the back stretch, especially from a promoter's standpoint. My guess is there will be a discussion and a vote, but I think we're just going to have to go really, really slow at the start of the race."
Newgarden, who sits second in the IndyCar Series standings, said he is still nursing the effects of the broken right wrist and clavicle he sustained in an accident at Texas Motor Speedway on June 12. While he is no longer wearing a brace on his right hand, ("It was taking up too much room and I couldn't grip the wheel") he doesn't expect to return to full strength for another two to three weeks.
"I really thought Iowa was going to be the biggest challenge, but I haven't been on a street course since Texas and I forgot how demanding they are," he added. "You're really getting rocked around this place and I'm sure I'm leaving some time on the table. The hand is the biggest thing, because when you get hit by curbs and everything, it just hurts."