My PhD (yes, I'm a "doctor" because of IndyCar) research on the IndyCar Series’ recent expansion to new venues revealed that different places are using different strategies in their hosting of race on the IndyCar schedule. IndyCar is the most elite form of motorsport that races on oval speedways, natural terrain road courses, and temporary street circuits. (I used three case studies: Iowa Corn Indy 250 – oval speedway; Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio – road course; Grand Prix of St. Petersburg – street circuit).

Street circuit races rely on a high level of public support, have a high impact on businesses and residents surrounding the venue, and can showcase a city’s downtown amenities via television exposure of city streets during most of the event. Below is a screenshot from the opening scene of ABC's broadcast of the race. Keep in mind, this race is in March and most of IndyCar's fan base is located in the Midwest. Does this look like an appealing place to travel to escape the cold, dark, grey winters of Indiana?
St Pete Race Screen Capture ABC

In the case of St. Petersburg, the festival atmosphere and high speed of IndyCar racing in their downtown streets has been part of a process of re-inventing the city as it sheds an image of a quiet city with mostly older residents and has been successful attracting both visitors and residents to downtown. Below is an image from Turn 10 of the St. Pete street circuit. This street is otherwise a quiet, bayfront street during the other 51 weeks of the year. Several tall, residential condos (see background) have been constructed since the first grand prix race. I took my father to a St. Pete race and he had no idea there even was a downtown St. Petersburg, much less a downtown with a lot of amenities.
St Pete Event Pic

Since 2000 and the fast growth of NASCAR racing, newly-constructed oval tracks were built in rural and suburban areas near major interstate highways in hopes of capturing larger markets of attending fans. Oval race events and venues are more akin to football stadiums, as fans purchase a ticket for a specific seat and can usually view the entire circuit. Before the IndyCar races on oval tracks, drivers are introduced to the entire crowd, just like professional sports teams. There is limited off-track action compared to street circuits and road courses with an IndyCar race as the main, and often the only, event.
Iowa event pic

Oval speedway events rely on high participation of private, local event sponsors that are marketing their good or service mostly to local race fans who, for the most part, stay only at the speedway on race day. In particular, the Iowa Corn Indy 250 provides a platform for local, corn-based ethanol promotion of their product in high-performance race cars. The Ethanol advertisement below is attempting to reassure consumers that ethanol is a reliable alternative to petroleum-based fuel for your vehicle.
Ethanol Promo Iowa 250

Unlike the downtown street events, race events on a purpose-built road course have a more rural setting and often are located in park-like settings as the courses meander through forests and rolling hills. Also, fans at road course events tend to be more knowledgeable about the racing, which can be difficult to follow as cars get strung out along the sinuous route. Similar to street events, there are support series race events all weekend long. IndyCar events at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course are more a celebration of the automobile industry, and in particular, the Honda assembly plants that employ thousands of nearby Ohio residents.
Mid Ohio event pic

The graphic below summarizes the key differences observed between these IndyCar events. Keep in mind, one of the goals of this research was to show how one particular event, an IndyCar race, is quite different based on the type of venue (oval, road course, street circuit). Once again, there aren't a lot of sports with this wide variety of "ball fields". In other words, all football games have 100-yard fields and tennis courts, whether the neighborhood park or Wimbledon, are all the same size. But, a race track can be quite different from one venue to the next.
Case Study Event Summary Table UPDATED

The Grand Prix of St. Petersburg uses their IndyCar Series event to market their city to race fans from a broader geographic target market than Iowa Speedway and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The timing of the St. Petersburg races each year also fits well with this target as many northerners, particularly those from IndyCar's Midwestern fan base visit warmer locations for Spring Break. The Mid-Ohio race pulls in more hardcore race fans from Ohio and bordering states, but compared to St. Petersburg, most fans are coming from the same region of the country. Race fans attending the Iowa race are much more likely to be coming from Iowa and are more serious race fans than most of those attending the St. Petersburg race. Although the St. Petersburg Grand Prix has a higher level of marketing of its locale, the Iowa event provides more of a platform to promote the local agricultural industry. Meanwhile, the Mid-Ohio event promotes a key ,local company, Honda, and more generally, their local motorsport industry.

Each of these case study events also differs in the type of event it hosts. The Grand Prix of St. Petersburg has more of a festival atmosphere, with spectators visiting multiple days and having more non-racing amenities to choose from at the race track. The Iowa Speedway race has more of the feel of a college football game, with fans arriving throughout the morning and afternoon, then parking and tailgating, and leaving that night once the event has concluded. Mid-Ohio is comparable to a golf tournament, with attendance levels remaining the same throughout the race weekend as spectators are more likely to attend more than one day.

Key differences between the case studies were also observed in their positive and negative impacts on their respective local areas. More positive and negative impacts were observed for St. Petersburg compared to the other two case study events. For both Iowa and Mid-Ohio, race fans spend most of their time at the venue and do not patronize local businesses as much as they do at the GPSP since the Iowa and Mid-Ohio events occur on
private property that is somewhat geographically isolated from the closest population centers.

Although the televised broadcast was successful in showcasing and promoting downtown St. Petersburg businesses, the local impacts of noise and congestion caused displacement and resentment among some residents and businesses. Increased costs for local taxpayers, the inability to achieve the aims of developing the Prairie Fire District, and the difficulty of attracting race fans to downtown Newton were the largest negatives observed for the Iowa Indy 250. Although the Mid-Ohio event had minimal positive impacts beyond the economic impact of increased patrons to local hotels and restaurants, there were hardly any negative impacts observed.