The race that was held back in the 90's (probably the Silver Crown event that Jimmy Sills won along with the midgets) was promoted thru out the area.

I remember ads in the Greensboro and Raleigh newspapers as well as local racing papers and magazines. I believe they also had radio ads on the Roanoke area rock stations.

There was a great car count for both the SC and midgets (I believe the midget event was won by Kenny Irwin over his team mate, Tony Stewart).

However, I later read where Richmond felt they did not get the fan turn out they expected for the advertising budget spent and decided against any future open wheel races (until IRL came along). I think they actually said the crowd was ~12,000 people and that doesn't look like much in a stadium that held about 70,000.
You've got to remember that this was in the hey day growth period for NASCAR when they couldn't get enough seats. Anything that didn't pack the stands like NASCAR was deemed a failure.

There were a lot of tix given away in Richmond area promotions to NASCAR fans who did not care for the USAC style. These are the people that the track listened to.

Even when IRL first started at RIR, the Friday support race was the NASCAR modifieds. Those shows were very successful and drew a lot of fans from the Northeast. I was surprised when they changed over to USAC, but I believe Tony and the IRL had something to do with that.

Since the 90's, the Sawyer family sold RIR to ISC. The Sawyers then bought the old Saluda dirt track (about 45miles east of Richmond) and converted it to the state-of-the-art Virginia Motor Speedway. This is where USAC needs to race at. This is the family that knew how to promote USAC in the 90's and drew 12,000. That would be a major sell-out at VMS. And VMS has a great clay surface and puts on the best racing in VA/NC. The facility is just as good as Lowes and you can actually race there. Last year, the Sawyers introduced a 305w class to try and help grow sprint car racing in the area. They had a great turn out for the Outlaws a few weeks ago. The track is big and wide. Silver Crown would have no trouble running there.