Indy 500 Ratings
 

The ratings for the 500 were higher than the Coke 600 for the first time in a decade. Indy drew a 4.1 with NASCAR rating at 3.8. Indy ratings were up over last year so that is good news for open wheel racing though the real story may be the fact that NASCAR ratings continues to decline. I'm not sure how they continue to get such huge contracts from the networks.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Just hope for the 100 th. Indy 500 they lift the blackout on tv for the Indianapolis area. There are to many people who can't attend for health or money matters. Quit holding the cities population prisoners.:15::15::15:

I didn't find out till 2 days after who even won the coca cola 600.. It is way too confusing to figure out what channel any of the races are on.I usually search and end up watching cops or something that is more exciting anyway!

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

I watch Indy while I get ready to head to Haubstadt :6: If I watched Napcar I'd be asleep in recliner before lap 5 :29:

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Originally Posted by racer-x:
I didn't find out till 2 days after who even won the coca cola 600.. It is way too confusing to figure out what channel any of the races are on.I usually search and end up watching cops or something that is more exciting anyway!

I still don't know who won. lol

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

I DVR'd the 600 and watched it in 30 minutes.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Originally Posted by dirt330:
Just hope for the 100 th. Indy 500 they lift the blackout on tv for the Indianapolis area. There are to many people who can't attend for health or money matters. Quit holding the cities population prisoners.:15::15::15:

Agreed! I really don't think it will affect that many locals who attend the race. I don't believe televising the race will cause the "natives" to drop their tickets and stay home.... If they're like me, they go for the experience...

Originally Posted by Points:
I still don't know who won. lol

I still don't care!

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

They had the radio broadcast of the 600 on the PA at Haubstadt during track prep time and during the rain delay. It was riveting. "They are going into turn 1, now exiting turn 2, down the back stretch, entering turn 3, coming out of 4". Over and over and over and over ad nauseam.

I think the blackout has as much to do with radio as it does tv.

By the way....if you live somewhere that you can get both the radio and TV feed and you choose to listen to the TV broadcast.....you are missing out on hearing the best play by play team in all of sports.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

The key for IndyCar is to take the momentum from the 500 and push it to the remainder of the series. The reason they can't do it is because they don't get full fields for the remainder of the races and they have too many boring road course events. If every event on the schedule was as good as Indy, open wheel racing would be in great shape because that race was 100x better than Nascar is these days.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Originally Posted by dsc1600:
The key for IndyCar is to take the momentum from the 500 and push it to the remainder of the series. The reason they can't do it is because they don't get full fields for the remainder of the races and they have too many boring road course events. If every event on the schedule was as good as Indy, open wheel racing would be in great shape because that race was 100x better than Nascar is these days.

Exactly! Thank you.
Only an idiot would schedule Belle Isle (Detroit) the week after the 500. They need to be at an oval track the week after the 500. The Milwaukee Mile wasn't a Week-After-The-500 tradition for no reason. :14:

The excitement of these "death-defying" Indy heroes just doesn't translate to a street race.

(Oh goody! I hear there's a new season finale set for '16! A street race in Boston! The drama is building already! :3:)

Appreciate the sentiment and I long for the old days as well. However they tried hard to keep this tradition going and it was not well attended. The street races seem to be popular with more casual fans and create "downtown" events which they like to attend.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

If they black it (or anything for that matter) out, just go online and find one of the live streams. You can watch them anywhere.

Originally Posted by dirt330:
Just hope for the 100 th. Indy 500 they lift the blackout on tv for the Indianapolis area. There are to many people who can't attend for health or money matters. Quit holding the cities population prisoners.:15::15::15:

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Milwaukee is probably not the answer at this point, but Detroit certainly isn't either.

Bigger issue than any of that though is the lack of cars. One of Nascars true advantages over Indy outside of American drivers has been having full fields. If every IndyCar race had 33 cars, now you're talking. As it is, it's a watered down version of itself outside the month of May and everyone knows it.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

The only place that 33 is a "full field" is at Indy. Just for grins I went out to champcarstats.com a picked a year at random out of the so-called "glory days" of CART, 1988, and the average car count was around 24-26. Even the other two 500-mile races (at MIS and Pocono) only had 28 and 26 cars respectively. Nazareth only drew 20.
Nobody in their right mind would put 33 Indy Cars on the track at Milwaukee (there were 22 starters in '88, by the way; Roberto Guerrero was entered but crashed in practice).

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

There is a designated formula for the number of cars allowed on a particular size track, but I don't remember the particulars and I couldn't find it. That is how they arrived at the figure of 33 cars at Indy.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

I'm not sure they use the formula any more Ron, but it works out to one car for every 400 feet. Back at champcarstats, checking another era that people get misty-eyed over (1955), there were only 11 races on the schedule. And one of them was the Pikes Peak Hillclimb. 100-milers on dirt only started 18 cars, yet somehow "Big Car" racing was healthier then. Another thing, other than at Indy everybody ran upright Kurtis or Kuzma Offys and everyone gets nostalgic for those days, but today it would be sneered at as "spec racing".

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

The glory days of IndyCars was not the late 80s, despite popular opinion, Nascar and open wheel were not equal in 1996. Far from it.

If you look at the days of past glories, 33 cars were started at places like Pocono Michigan and Ontario in the 1970s/early 80s. Milwaukee hovered around 26, but as has been said before, I don't think their future is there anyway.

I think we can all agree 20-22 is not going to get it done on a 2-2.5 mile track.

So based upon some of the discussion in this topic, most fans here will agree that the IndyCar series schedule needs an overhaul. What tracks does the series need to go to? When should they race at each of them? What tracks or races should be dropped, and what tracks need to be added? What should be the balance of ovals, road courses, and street races?

This site surely has the answers.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Originally Posted by jjones752:
I'm not sure they use the formula any more Ron, but it works out to one car for every 400 feet. Back at champcarstats, checking another era that people get misty-eyed over (1955), there were only 11 races on the schedule. And one of them was the Pikes Peak Hillclimb. 100-milers on dirt only started 18 cars, yet somehow "Big Car" racing was healthier then. Another thing, other than at Indy everybody ran upright Kurtis or Kuzma Offys and everyone gets nostalgic for those days, but today it would be sneered at as "spec racing".

"Big Car" racing was much healthier then. The reason it was is because Springfield, Du Quoin, Indy Mile, etc. were packed to the rafters every year for the "Big Cars". Haven't seen a full house for the "Big Cars" at those venue's for at least 20 years regardless of car count.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Originally Posted by hoosier race fan:
So based upon some of the discussion in this topic, most fans here will agree that the IndyCar series schedule needs an overhaul. What tracks does the series need to go to? When should they race at each of them? What tracks or races should be dropped, and what tracks need to be added? What should be the balance of ovals, road courses, and street races?

This site surely has the answers.

(Not sure if that last statement was incredulous, but here goes..)

Yeah, the schedule does need an overhaul. I believe there needs to be an even balance of oval and road races, so I'll begin there.

This year, there are 6 oval races, and 10 road races (permanent & street) with an 11th announced for next season (Boston). This is definitely not a balanced schedule, right?

Ok, so would I drop any dates to even up the balance? Well, not necessarily. I wouldn't drop any venues, but I would do away with one of the "twin" races at Belle Isle. So that would negate the addition of Boston, and keep the ratio at 6 : 10.

BUT!, wait a minute, I'm also in the camp of people who believe IndyCar needs to be at Elkhart Lake, and Laguna Seca, so... that puts my ratio at 6 : 12. Uh oh, that doesn't support my balanced schedule theory!

That means we need to add 6 (!) more oval races, and expand the season schedule to 24 events. Is it doable? I'd like to see it anyway! So what are the 6 ovals we should add to the schedule? That is my question to all of you. Here are my choices...

Kentucky Speedway,
Michigan International Speedway,
Richmond International Raceway,
Gateway International Speedway,
Phoenix International Raceway,
..and either..
(6a) Charlotte Motor Speedway, or
(6b) Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Also, 2 of these oval races NEED to be before the 500!
I think a revival of the Copper World Classic would be a great way to start off the season!

Low car counts the last few years have really hurt car count, but 2008 -2011 had some great crowds at DuQuoin and I haven't missed a race since 1975

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Originally Posted by LEADERS EDGE:
I think the blackout has as much to do with radio as it does tv.

By the way....if you live somewhere that you can get both the radio and TV feed and you choose to listen to the TV broadcast.....you are missing out on hearing the best play by play team in all of sports.

When I'm at The 500 I tune my raceiver to the radio broadcast. Better than the track announcer and with the earbuds I can hear the broadcast even when the cars are right in front of me.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

Originally Posted by hoosier race fan:
So based upon some of the discussion in this topic, most fans here will agree that the IndyCar series schedule needs an overhaul. What tracks does the series need to go to? When should they race at each of them? What tracks or races should be dropped, and what tracks need to be added? What should be the balance of ovals, road courses, and street races?

This site surely has the answers.

Kentucky Speedway was great for Indy cars. Bring it back.

I don't they have lost any races because of too many fans in the stands.

Originally Posted by chrismattlin:
(Not sure if that last statement was incredulous, but here goes..)

Yeah, the schedule does need an overhaul. I believe there needs to be an even balance of oval and road races, so I'll begin there.

This year, there are 6 oval races, and 10 road races (permanent & street) with an 11th announced for next season (Boston). This is definitely not a balanced schedule, right?

Ok, so would I drop any dates to even up the balance? Well, not necessarily. I wouldn't drop any venues, but I would do away with one of the "twin" races at Belle Isle. So that would negate the addition of Boston, and keep the ratio at 6 : 10.

BUT!, wait a minute, I'm also in the camp of people who believe IndyCar needs to be at Elkhart Lake, and Laguna Seca, so... that puts my ratio at 6 : 12. Uh oh, that doesn't support my balanced schedule theory!

That means we need to add 6 (!) more oval races, and expand the season schedule to 24 events. Is it doable? I'd like to see it anyway! So what are the 6 ovals we should add to the schedule? That is my question to all of you. Here are my choices...

Kentucky Speedway,
Michigan International Speedway,
Richmond International Raceway,
Gateway International Speedway,
Phoenix International Raceway,
..and either..
(6a) Charlotte Motor Speedway, or
(6b) Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Also, 2 of these oval races NEED to be before the 500!
I think a revival of the Copper World Classic would be a great way to start off the season!

Yes Please bring Kentucky back.


These guys are the best business on an oval. Napcar just a parade.

Originally Posted by sprntr:
When I'm at The 500 I tune my raceiver to the radio broadcast. Better than the track announcer and with the earbuds I can hear the broadcast even when the cars are right in front of me.

The guys that do the radio broadcast are awesome. I can't say I care for Paul Page as much as the guy who called it the last couple years but they do a great job.

Since I threw the questions out there I suppose I'll take a shot at answering.

Not going to take any races away since there aren't that many to begin with.

Add: Phoenix, Richmond, Kentucky, Watkins Glen, Circuit of the Americas, Boston street course.

Schedule:
St. Petersburg - Season opener, early March
Barber MP - mid-March
Phoenix - late March
Long Beach - early April
NOLA - mid-April
Texas - late April
Indy GP - early May
Indy - Memorial Day Weekend
Milwaukee - early June
Belle Isle - mid-June
Richmond - late June
Boston - early July (4th of July weekend if possible)
Watkins Glen - mid-July
Iowa - late July
Toronto - early August
Pocono - mid-August
Mid-Ohio - late August
Kentucky - Labor Day Weekend
Sonoma - mid-September
Circuit of the Americas - late September
Auto Club California - early October Season Championship

I attempted to follow a guideline of 3 races per month, 21 races total. I also attempted to avoid conflicts with NASCAR races at certain tracks, preferrably at least 2 weeks between NASCAR and IndyCar events at the same venue. 9 ovals of various different sizes and configurations, 7 permanent road courses, and 5 temporary street courses. Other races and tracks could obviously be added with at least 1 open weekend in each month. I left off places like Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Michigan, Elkhart Lake, etc. that could be good choices for events. Many could easily be swapped for events in the same area on the current schedule.

Re: Indy 500 Ratings
 

The tracks have to want them. Most ovals are nascar tracks. Indycars put on a better show for a cheaper ticket. the tracks are not interested. The best way to see the schedule grow is to attend the races already on the schedule.