TMS would technically be allowed to admit fans at 25% capacity under Abbott's revised orderGETTY IMAGES
Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage said that IndyCar's season-opener June 6 at TMS "will still be a made-for-TV event without fans present," despite Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's newly revised order that "allows outdoor professional sports venues to admit fans at 25% capacity" starting Sunday, according to Nathan Brown of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. The opportunity to possibly hold the first major U.S. sporting event with fans since the pandemic halted big events "would have been seen as a major victory for the track and sport." But Gossage said that the time crunch of just over a week before race day was "too high a mountain to climb." Gossage: "Really, there's still a lot of unanswered questions that you've got to look into to know how something like this would affect us. And there's no sufficient time to resolve anything." He added, "I'm a race fan myself, and there's nothing I'd like more than to have race fans there, whether it's 100,000 or 10,000 -- it's better than none." More Gossage: "It doesn't look as good on TV when there's all those empty seats with folks sprinkled around here and there. But the bottom line is we want to get back to where the whole place is open" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 5/29).
