OT-NASCAR announcement

[rrrr]

See the NASCAR forum for details....

[JoeBob]

What will the impact of a Labor Day race at Fontana be on the IRL and CART Races there? If the IRL keeps its current weekend, they'll be only two weeks after the NASCAR race. CART is only 6 weeks after the IRL.

Those are a lot of races, close together. You can't expect fans to shell out $75 per person three times in eight weeks.

At least one, and maybe both open wheel races will have to move.

[mesquite]

One other thing ... the season-ticket packages. Depending on whether CART is back at Fontana next year, season ticket holders may have to choose from 5 different major races.

Only 2 years ago it was just NASCAR and CART. This year the IRL is on the package, and now NASCAR is adding another date.

[slinger]

I would think this would hurt the IRL much worse than it would CART. The CART fans aren't likely to be much interested in either the IRL or NASCAR, so for them there is no conflict. NASCAR fans would be much more likely to attend an IRL race than a CART race but two races so close in time might be a strain.

[SamC]

Its no big deal to turn an oval around from NASCAR to IRL to whatever. Mostly just a few revisions and some moving stuff around in the pits and garage area. Assuming that the seating area can be cleaned in a week, a track could easily run a different series every week, all season.

As to attendance, I don't see the problem. This is LA. 20M people within 150 miles. NASCAR is going to sell out. If the IRL can't get 40K out of the remaining 19.9M, its in bad shape.

I don't know about seasons. Requiring people to buy 2 Winston Cups, a Busch race, a Trucks race, a Winston West race (the second Cup event will not be supported by the Busch Series), IRL and CART is a lot to ask. But that will just free up more tickets for other people.

[Greg828]

Originally posted by SamC
As to attendance, I don't see the problem. This is LA. 20M people within 150 miles. NASCAR is going to sell out. If the IRL can't get 40K out of the remaining 19.9M, its in bad shape.

Did you see the crowd last year? They'll need to improve X8 or so just to get 40,000. It was a GREAT race, but it won't be easy.