The IRL races in front of 80,000+ at the new Kansas Speedway

[Joe Fan]

Well, it looks like the IRL found another stronghold to add to Indy and Texas. Yes, my home track Kansas Speedway. I attended this race and I must say that it turned out to be a pretty exciting one. The heat was around 140 degrees on pitlane and the track was pretty green and it is not necessarily the easiest oval being a trioval configuration. So Eddie Cheever's win was pretty impressive one in my mind. Critics can say what they want about the IRL and its drivers but it appears that the IRL is starting to finally take off and they do produce some pretty exciting races on occasion. And if they produce and develop a Tony Stewart, Kenny Brack, Buddy Lazier and Sam Hornish every five years, then the IRL is doing something right.

Overall, I think the IRL will succeed on the oval venues that CART did not and slowly but surely, CART will end up racing only on road courses in the U.S., except for Chip Ganassi's oval track. Personally myself, maybe this isn't such a bad thing as it may help end some of the confusion about open wheel racing in the U.S.

[marcus]

well i dont have to state again how i feel about the IRL for fear of retribution

but a decent looking facillty at Kansas ..big track nice spectator facilities from what I could see and produces some pretty good racing..I saw both the IRL race and the Indy lites race and enjoyed both of them...one question ..do the CART cars ever plan to run there ????

on your comment at the end Joe...sounds like a fair deal to me..give the IRL the ovals and let CART have the road courses..then there is not alot of confusion for the casual observer.

[KC]

It was a great race at Kansas. Cheever and Hornish showed that they can race one another close without crashing into each other. Too bad some of the other stars in the series, namely Sharp and Ray, cannot seem to do the same. I am glad that the good people of Kansas and Missouri are able to go and see some professional racing without having to travel 6 to 8 hours.

[SevenGrain]

Not wanting to take anything away from what was a good race at a great facility, from what I understand that if you wanted to purchase a ticket for the Kansas Winston Cup Race in September, you had to buy a ticket for the IRL race in July. It's a clever little marketing ploy to fill the seats for all the events,and Texas did the same thing for their first IRL race and filled the place. And the official estimates were closer to 69,000 (source ESPN).
The IRL must be given credit for breaking into new markets though, along with the race at Kansas, last year's Kentucky race and this year's inagural event in Richmond were also very successful. The Charlotte race also drew a big crowd before the tragedy a few years ago took it off the IRL schedule.

[Joe Fan]

Marcus, I have heard that the Speedway was talking about holding a CART race there but I doubt that it comes to fruition. It seems that CART is moving away from ovals. Some of this I have heard is that they are pricing themselves out of these venues with their fees (for holding a race) compared to the attendance that they are bringing back.

As for the IRL, I know quite a few people are upset with Tony George and blame the split on him (for which he has said that he is hurt by) but there really needed to lower cost open wheel forumla because CART was becoming too expensive as the owners kept trying to outdo eachother and it is a fact that American drivers were (and still are) being left out in the cold by foreign ride buyers. Even with the creation of the IRL, American drivers still don't seem to catapult to CART and IRL the way that foreign drivers in those series do even with better performances in them.

In our local newspaper, it said that the costs to run an IRL team run about $4-5 million whereas in CART, it is $10 million. So I like the idea of the IRL because it has given chances to drivers that would have been left out in the cold. I cannot see Kenny Brack being in CART right now if it weren't for the IRL and he is the current CART points leader.


Sevengrain, true that Kansas Speedway season ticket holders had to purchase the IRL tickets to get the Winston Cup tickets but they also had to purchase the Truck series race and BGN too. Many thought as hot as it was Saturday (100 degrees) that these people wouldn't be back Sunday for the IRL race because of the temperatures but everyone did come back and there many have even been more people on Sunday.

I am assuming that the 69,000 figure you quoted was for the inaugral Texas IRL race. I have been to many soldout NFL games at Arrowhead )which holds 79,000) and I know for sure that there was more people at the Speedway than at any of the Chiefs games at Arrowhead.

[SevenGrain]

No, that was for Kansas. The Kansas Speedway reported that 75,000 tickets were sold (a sell out)and official attendance estimates were between 69,000 and 70,000 according to ESPN and 75,000 according to the IRL (it depends on who you believe here) While still a very large crowd for an open wheel event, the figure of 80,000-plus is a little bit too optimistic.

[Joe Fan]

Sevengrain, the Speedway hasn't released the exact attendance but estimates I have found were 80,000-85,000. I can tell you right now that ESPN's esimates of 69,000 way too low. The infield holds quite a few spectators and you couldn't find many empty seats in the stands (when people were sitting in them instead of taking cover under the bleachers from the sun). I would say that 80,000 (slightly larger than a Chiefs game) was about right when you added in the infield attendance numbers.

[Joey Jo Jo]

I think the two series need to become one again, but I don't think it should lean toward more of an IRL direction. while it only cost about 4 to 5 million for an IRL team they also run less races than CART and when compared to F-1 some teams have a budget of 100 million. In the US F-1 is not nearly as popular as basketball or football but I know most of those franchises budget way over 100 million per their season. While lowering the cost of running a team might allow more drivers and teams to compete, will their level of excellence up to par? More money, more development, more promotion, and more races will lead to a mainstream sport.

does anyone know how much Jeff Gordon's NASCAR team has bugeted per year? It would be neat to see him race at Indy.