Ocala.com Bloggers
- Broken News
- Bill Thompson
- Digital Editor
- Eric Barnes
- Frame 37
- Ocala.com Multimedia
- Marion Politics
- Newsroom
- Observations
- Naseem S. Miller
- OcalaDay
- Joe Byrnes
- Read My E-Mail
- Allen Parson
- Running Wide Open
- Joe Vanhoose
- Speaking of Business...
- Dr. Philip R. Geist
- The Bowling Blog
- Debbie Whitten
- The Green Zone
- Dave Rhea
- The Sports Blog
- Gregory Broome
- What is that?
- Newsroom
 |
Search Blogs
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Blog Archives
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Where's the Spectacle
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Location: Blogs Running Wide Open |
 |
| Posted by: Joe VanHoose |
5/26/2007 5:11 AM |
The Indianapolis 500 is this Sunday. Can you name the drivers on the front row?
Alright, that’s a little tough. How about the pole sitter? Not so much? Can you name five drivers in the field who’s not a woman and whose last name is not Andretti or Unser? Can you name one?
Therein lies the problem with the Indy 500 and Indy Car racing in general. Few people know or care anymore. And Indy Car only has itself to blame.
Granted, it didn’t used to be like this. The Indianapolis 500 used to live up to its billing as “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” While network television passed on NASCAR broadcasts, the Indy 500 drew double-digit television ratings and over a half million people to the track in May. Pole day alone for the Indy 500 attracted over 100,000 fans into the early ‘90s.
But oh, how times have changed. The Indy 500 now regularly draws a smaller TV audience – hovering around a 5.5 rating -- than NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte Sunday evening. Pole day only attracted around 20,000 this year, and Sunday’s 500 could get beaten in attendance by NASCAR’s Indy Race, the Brickyard 400, in August.
Indy Car landed a glancing blow on itself in 1996 when Indy Car and Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George split open-wheeled racing into two competing groups: IRL and CART. Both series fell out of the mainstream and open-wheeled racers like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman moved over to NASCAR, taking legions of Indy fans with them.
And the fans aren’t coming back any time soon.
Now the Indy 500, once revered as the most famous race in the world, plays second fiddle in its own back yard. The race that captured generations of race fans with heroics from names like Foyt, Mears, Unser and Andretti is now filled with names that few know and even fewer can pronounce correctly.
Let’s revisit some earlier questions. Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan and Dario Fanchitti start on the front row, but Dan Wheldon and Sam Hornish Jr. appear to be the favorites.
Those are all household names right?
Danica Patrick starts eighth, but she hasn’t won a race and carries a shadow of the significance she had in 2005 when she became the first woman to lead the Indy 500. A.J. Foyt IV starts 18th but has never come close to winning anything in his grandfather’s car, and Michael and Marco Andretti start in the top 15 but don’t figure to be much of a factor.
Goosebumps will still rise when the band plays “Taps” and everyone sings “Back Home Again in Indiana” before the race on Sunday. But how many fans will stick around and watch drivers they don’t identify with? How many people who watch on television will remember the race winner’s name by the end of next week?
Therein lies the problem, indeed.
|
|
| Permalink |
Trackback |
|
|
|
|