[ronmil]

Excellent post! I have read several racing related books recently, mostly biographies about Johnnie Parsons, Bill Vukovich, Parnelli Jones, Crocky Wright, and others, and I noticed in the photos that the grandstands were always packed for all the sprint car races in the fifties and sixties. I first went to Salem for the Joe James - Pat O'Connor race in 1967, and it was SRO. It was that way for many years; same thing at DuQuoin for the Champ cars. Terre Haute used to be packed to the rafters every race. Haven't seen that in years. Auto racing was not considered a mainstream sport back in the day, so how did all those people find out about the races and make their way to the various tracks? I do remember Salem ran radio ads in Evansville, (believe the announcer identified himself as Charlie Ryal, not sure of spelling), but there wasn't much publicity other than that that I remember. So, with auto racing supposedly more mainstream, and more publicity, why don't we have bigger crowds? I don't have the answer, do you?