For decades the 500 sold out by the end of June for the next year's 500. And that was with near zero promotion or marketing. There were a couple of weeks of Practice, two weekends of Time Trials with plenty of extra entries, and then the race itself. Now there are just four days of Practice before "qualifying" which is now meaningless where nearly everyone makes the show. Now the "Month of May" doesn't really even start until Carb Day and even then most of the crowd comes for the concerts (which they also hold during the race itself now; you can hear the music thumping over the race engines). It's still a great event but it has nowhere near the national following that it used to have. Just like NASCAR I'm sure the track itself is likely more profitable than ever but there are often a lot better and more interesting races put on at local short tracks all across the country.
the sentence "Updated for this years race" and the buzz around Speedway (my home town) as who had a new car and who was working on it seems to have fallen by the wayside. The memorabilia is not worth much either! How old is Buddy Rice and Sam Hornich? Didn't they win the race once?
