I wasn’t the only one that noticed the lack of a crowd at Texas Motor Speedway. Marshall Pruett
wrote a column about this. A highlight:
Quote:
|
Whether it’s doing a rental at TMS or simply combining its skills and resources with the track, something’s got to change before we return. The promotional failure at the ticket office was embarrassing in every imaginable way. IndyCar drivers and teams risk too much over those 248 laps to play in front of an empty house. They deserve better and so do the faithful who circle this event on the calendar every year and pray for a good race.
|
MP attempts to blame the track for this, including an early start time but he’s overlooking a critical issue — I’m not sure to what degree TMS is calling the shots here. Or at least
all the shots.
The choice of dates was, well, highly problematic, as it was the same weekend as the 12 Hours of Sebring. But NBC had a time slot, so the race moved to March 20. It’s thus also quite possible that NBC also set or at least heavily influenced the time of the race as well.
And that’s the bigger issue — what’s good for NBC’s schedule may not be good for event profitability or, long term, IndyCar. Having logical schedules matters. IMSA is good at this. IndyCar seems quite willing to let television drive their schedule, to IndyCar’s detriment.