Last lap for Detroit Grand Prix?

Race day attendance at Belle Isle peaked in 1994, when the venue attracted a crowd of 62,000. But the race has seen a steady decline in attendance since then, and Belle Isle has never been popular with the teams and drivers due to a cramped and often soggy paddock and a tight, bumpy and confining race track.

This is the final year in CART's contract to run at Detroit, and CART and race promoter IMG Motorsports have met to try to secure a future for the race. But both sides say the chances of the event surviving are bleak, particularly when viewed in concert with this year's crowds, the smallest ever at Belle Isle.

IMG Motorsports boss Bud Stanner was blunt in his assessment of why the future of the Detroit GP is in question.

"The landscape of putting on a street-type race has changed, particularly for CART," said Stanner. "What has happened over the last few years is the amount of money needed to have a race ­ the sanctioning fee the promoter pays to CART ­ has gotten totally out of balance to what a promoter can afford. The expenses of running a race on a temporary venue are pretty harsh compared to more permanent venues."

Stanner added that IMG - which also promotes the CART races at Cleveland, Mid-Ohio and Surfers Paradise, Australia ­ has explored alternate sites to host the Detroit CART race. But he continued to be pessimistic about the odds of saving the race.

"It's all a function of the funds that are incoming and outgoing," he remarked. "If we don't have a CART race next year, it won't be because we didn't try our very hardest. We've looked at downtown , but the costs of business interruption and parking dislocation run into the millions of dollars."

Stanner added that the Detroit GP doesn't necessarily have to remain a CART race to survive.

"We're obviously talking to other organisations of CART," he said. "It would be negligent if we didn't."