Edmonton IndyCar race folds

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) -- The Edmonton IndyCar race has folded.

Promoter Octane Motorsports said Friday that it won't stage the race the next year, and city officials said they won't search for a replacement promoter. The decisions leave Toronto as IndyCar's lone Canadian race.

"When we finalized our schedule for the upcoming 2013 season, it unfortunately did not include Edmonton," IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard said. "We thank the city of Edmonton and all the fans for their support of the event over the last eight years.

"More importantly, this has not affected our plans for a minimum of 19 races next season, and we remain optimistic that we will return to having two races in Canada as early as 2014. We anticipate announcing our full 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series schedule the first week of October."

The race on a temporary road course at Edmonton City Centre Airport began in 2005 under the Champ Car banner.

"This news is disappointing for the city and race fans," Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel said. "The 2012 Edmonton Indy was a great event both on and off the track. It, like previous races, brought economic benefits and international exposure to Edmonton."

Montreal-based Octane said that to survive the event needed a promise of more spectators and more support from local businesses, and that it was wasn't confident that would happen.

"Despite our tight management policies and all our efforts to offer to the fans a world-class spectacle, we were not able to make this event profitable and nothing allows us to hope for a better profitability next year," Octane said in a statement. "This year's attendance was good, but we were also convinced that the event, especially with the quality of the spectacle offered, should have attracted many more spectators over its three days."

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