Originally Posted by illiNOISE:
I'd love to see guys like Darland and Hines get a shot at Indy, and this isn't going to down well on this forum, but don't kid yourself, the sporting world was a million times more interested in Ruebens Barrichello's first Indy 500 than Bryan Clauson's.
---------- Post added at 6:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 6:07 PM ----------
It's no mistake at all. Long Beach and Baltimore get 100,000 spectators. Meanwhile, last year's Millwaukee's Indy Car race got an abysmal 0.6 rating on ABC.
We all know the racing on street courses is terrible. Nothing like watching exotic cars "race" single file at 40 mph by a big flower bed and fountain at Long Beach, or race across a freaking train track at Baltimore. But those races draw interest. With just a few exceptions, the circle track Indy Car races play to empty stands.
It's not the (street) race that most of those people are interested in. It's the party...the street festival. Yes, the street festivals drew pretty well for a while but, the dedicated road courses struggled to draw crowds. You forget that tracks like Texas and Charlotte drew crowds of over 100K back in the early 2000's. Kentucky Speedway had crowds in the 60k range during those years. There were some very well attended oval races.