competition caution...lol. don't want the leader to run away. what a joke of a series. I'm growing tired of all this nascar crap. a joke of a series in need of some change.
lol...chas, it seems you are tiring as well. the most exciting thing in nascar is the RTA. they spoke ZERO about it in the pre-race show. seems nascar has also alerted the networks that it is a no fly zone area
I'm not thinking qualifying heats, but full blown points races. Imagine also doing races with a set time, rather than distance. Do a two hour sprint cup race Saturday night, and another two hour sunday afternoon. Then for the chase, do races with just the cars in the chase, short, no or one pit stop. Imagine using Charlotte's front straight short track they use for their Summer shoot out with 16 sprint cup cars duking it out for points. if they want exciting racing, make a higher % of the racing count, a long 300 mile practice session where you can use wavearounds and luckydogs to make up lost laps and win the race, doesn't give as much to talk about later.
Indycar has gotten a lot of mileage out of the "double headers" on street circuits. what needs to happen is something that shortens the races, but doesn't reduce the amount of on-track time for the live audience. so double headers might work. two day shows too. you could pay points for qualifying heats too, I guess...
nascar is tweeting about the great attendance at indy...lol. looks pretty empty to me. tweeting about attendance is akin to the titanic taking on a bit of water.
I do all of the above too. for years (as a kid), I didn't make the connection between Winston Cup and cigarettes....I thought it was named for somebody named Winston (I think that also disproves the "cigarette advertising makes kids smoke" argument )
Yeah, I never went along with that argument either. Despite being constantly exposed to Camel, Winston, Marlboro, etc., any of the cigarette brands which were deeply involved in racing, it never motivated me to try cigarettes which always seemed kind of gross. Did enjoy the Camel Girls during the IMSA days however. BHW
the crowd size debate rages on (with some interesting estimates) Curt Cavin: The debate over Brickyard 400 attendance
chas, this is telling as the nascar media folks have resorted to tweating lies about the attendance. I am telling you all Nascar is headed in a bad place and w/o further changes, will face real hardship. again, I am looking forward to all the entertainment that the RTA will provide. I really dislike the france family and what they have done to racing...the ama included. pcb
funny you mention AMA....when I started watching racing (late 80s), AMA was going gangbusters....tons of factory support, major sponsorship programs, factory riders from around the world. look at it now, I didn't even know it still existed. I think they're down to 6 races a year, and the only one they promote is Daytona....God I hope sports car racing doesn't go down that road.
The tracks should be held accountable to report the number of tickets sold rather and a rough estimate made by observers hovering in a helicopter or cops taking a rough head count of people walking through the gates. We all know that the tracks do this dance for every race. Sebring, Daytona, Indianapolis, all of them. In the early '00's, a guy did an intensive study of crowd size at Sebring. He took the number of available square acres of the facility, minus things like the track and attached structures, cars, RVs, paddock etc. and figured out that if the reported 180K crowd size was true, the people would be sandwiched in like sardines stacked three or four high on each other's shoulders spread across every available square foot of the facility. Wish I could find that article again as it was very interesting how it all broke down and of course crowd sizes certain races are legally allowed to host per the terms of their local fire and police permits which all should be a matter of public record. Tracks also routinely roll their crowd size across the three or four days they host each event. Of course, they do all of this in order to show potential sponsors that every year they have "record crowds" which bolsters the price they ask for sponsorship packages. Most recently, the reported crowds for the 24 Hours of Daytona have been in the 100K area. Really? When asked where all of these people are, the reply is that crowds for sports car racing gather in the infield. Okay, fair enough, but are we supposed to believe that a crowd virtually the size that attends the Rose Bowl annually fills the DIS infield which has been virtually cut down by a half with the expanded paddock including their cars, RVs and tents? Daytona reports the crowds for the 24 Hours has grown so much recently that they have to restrict the amount of cars that are let in through the tunnels. Very convenient but the truth is, with the expanded paddock which takes up virtually the middle half of the infield now, they can only accommodate a certain amount of cars, it has nothing to do with the crowd size which has remained virtually unchanged from the advent of GrandAm. The reply, then, is usually "but the suites are full". Really? In this instance, the luxury suites account for a very small percentage of the crowd size, dare to say 1%? And, this is the problem. If a track is happy to have full suites but empty grandstands, it means the only people attending are the well-heeled, corporate types entertaining clients that have little to no interest in racing which no doubt accounts for a lot of NASCAR's bottom line but asses in the seats is what sponsors and TV cameras want to see. Reverting to Sebring again, once the new pit complex with luxury suites were built in 2000, it is easy to see how many of them are occupied at night. The occupied suites are lit up and people may be seen inside them. But, the problem is, the amount of suites are completely dark and its a conservative estimate that on a good race, only half of the suites are occupied. It's a tricky game these tracks play to bolster their advertising and sponsorship rates. But, the truth is, crowd size in every form of motor sport is suffering lately from F-1 on down. It's the world we live in now. BHW
were you at Daytona or Sebring this year? both of those races were packed. infield and GA viewing areas were tough to navigate, let alone fine a good viewing spot. I do think the Sebring and Daytona #s were for the weekend, not just the main event; but they still looked like good crowds to me. Petit as well packs them in. Laguna Seca on the other hand, I was at the ALMS race there a few years back and there were more people working the event than spectating. crowd was estimated at 20k for the weekend, I think that's optimistic by 10k.
Yes, good crowds, but nothing remotely approaching their estimates. Thinking about it in terms of a typical NFL game crowd at Sun Life Stadium for a Dolphins game. 80,000 people inside packed in shoulder to shoulder and the parking lot expanding several hundred square acres likewise packed with cars. BHW
the Sun Life facility is 140 acres. Road Atlanta is 750 acres! (can't find acre #s for Sebring) so 100k people over 3 or 4 days is possible without the density looking NFL/MLB packed.
