> wrote:
The IRL's off-season (the 50 weeks after any Indy 500) is
a good time to ponder the coming season's excuses for
poor performance of the "League." The IRL, after all,
has been delivering everything they said CART wasn't
way back in 1995, so it remains an oddity that none of
the numbers (attendance, TV ratings) that measure
popularity or audience response are even close to
what they were when CART ran the series and was
the primary source of In
dy 500 entries.
ExcuseFest 2009 should be a good one. With the economy
in turmoil, this will be the primary source of apology from
our IRL faithful.
In the past, they blamed CART's continuing existence
as divisive, both to sponsor potential and to audience
interest. That surprised me, because according
to the book of IRL, America was craving an all-oval
open wheel series without hard to pronounce foreign
driver names.
America also reviled street and road course racing,
preferring an Indy 500 and series with roots in the
many dirt tracks throughout the country.
Even with the IRL charter intact and fully operational,
the annual ExcuseFest began. It has had a good run,
with CART's existence probably being #1 for most
of the 12 year run, with the emergence of NASCAR
as a possibly equal threat.
The NASCAR interruption of the IRL's rise to be
better than F-1 etc., is all the more amusing because
Tony introduced a NASCAR race to Indy, which those
of us pre-IRL Indy fans always considered open wheel's
hallowed ground.
Well, CART, OWRS, ChampCar are all history
now - finally bought out by the IRL itself. All
we can count on now (outside of the mega-media
outlet, Versus) are this darn economy,
and NASCAR as the best excuses for another
dismal (compared to 1995 and before) season.
Gentleman, start your excuses!
-Sterling
There is no excuse for crapwagaons.
Bob
