Indy attendance bad?

tkj24

tkj24

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For the first time in NASCAR's Indy history, there were numerous empty seats on the front straight. There lots of empty seats everywhere except on the front straight. According to writers who covered both races, for the first time in recent years, the Indy 500 crowd was clearly larger than the NASCAR crowd. ESPN's Brent Musburger lied to the television audience by estimating the crowd at 250,000 and claim-ing "there isn't a seat to be had." Without question, it was, by far, the smallest crowd in the 14 years a stock-car race has been run here. -- Gaston Gazette
http://www.gastongazette.com/sports/NASCAR_7864___article.html/Monte_Dutton.html
 
That's really hard to say about attendance. Yes, there were empties in Turn 3, but most were on the bottom 4 or 5 rows that are crap.

The empties I saw on the front stretch were the seats behind pit row, and low. You really can't see much from there.
 
from some of the shots on tv I saw alot of empty bleachers I seriously doubt there was 250,000 there
 
TexasRaceLady said:
That's really hard to say about attendance. Yes, there were empties in Turn 3, but most were on the bottom 4 or 5 rows that are crap.

The empties I saw on the front stretch were the seats behind pit row, and low. You really can't see much from there.
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Your telling me you can't see from behind the pits. I sat there the 2nd time I went to Indy. The only time you could see them was when they went in front of you and then they were going so fast that you couldn't tell who they were.
 
A six-month inspection of each grandstand resulted in a count of 257,325 permanent seats, which includes the five types of suites scattered around the Speedway. It is believed to be the only formal count of the seats in the facility's modern era.
The Indy Racing League has issued about 800 season credentials to participants, league employees and journalists, and there are another 600 journalists who have received credentials for this race. There are about 800 law enforcement officers, according to Jeff Dine, police chief for the town of Speedway.

That brings the estimated number of people who could be on site Sunday, if the race sells out, to 267,925.
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So the maximum # of people if all the seats are sold and all the passes given out is 267,925 accourding to The Star in 2004. But, Indy has never disclosed the actual numbers.
 
This doesn't surprise me at all. First off, while it's clear that Indy means a lot to the drivers, it has less affect with the fans. That's not to say that the fans don't have an interest in Indy, but that Indy is Indy and it brings to mind open wheel racing. Also, even at those other big tracks like Daytona and Taladega, one can at least have a glimpse of the cars around the track. At Indy, you get what you pay for, sight of the cars going in front of you. Makes for watching this race on TV a much better idea.

Once again, during the week of this race, the media brings up the idea of what this race means to the drivers. There is always that reporter who asks, is this race more important/mean more/desired, etc. than the Daytona 500. With today's drivers, many of them, including this years winner and at lease second place finisher, the answer is yes. The more drivers they get from the open ranks circuits, the more important Indy is. I'm sure that if you ask drivers from the era pre-90's, you'll get a different answer than if you ask the drivers from post-2000. This will also show you the direction that NASCAR is heading.

Indy certainly has the history, but that history certainly isn't NASCAR.
 
buckaroo said:
This doesn't surprise me at all. First off, while it's clear that Indy means a lot to the drivers, it has less affect with the fans. That's not to say that the fans don't have an interest in Indy, but that Indy is Indy and it brings to mind open wheel racing. Also, even at those other big tracks like Daytona and Taladega, one can at least have a glimpse of the cars around the track. At Indy, you get what you pay for, sight of the cars going in front of you. Makes for watching this race on TV a much better idea.

Once again, during the week of this race, the media brings up the idea of what this race means to the drivers. There is always that reporter who asks, is this race more important/mean more/desired, etc. than the Daytona 500. With today's drivers, many of them, including this years winner and at lease second place finisher, the answer is yes. The more drivers they get from the open ranks circuits, the more important Indy is. I'm sure that if you ask drivers from the era pre-90's, you'll get a different answer than if you ask the drivers from post-2000. This will also show you the direction that NASCAR is heading.

Indy certainly has the history, but that history certainly isn't NASCAR.
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I went 2x to the Brickyard. 1. It is the end of July...TOO HOT. 2. There is no where you can sit at Indy that you can see the whole track, some seats are better than others but you lose them somewhere.
 
I saw a number of empty seats in turn 3 and I also quite a few in the section between turns 3 and 4.
 
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