At Least USAC Didn’t Try To Feign Competence

I feel bad now for poking fun at NASCAR's television ratings slide.

I just read over at Christopher Estrada's Indy Racing Revolution blog that the Versus network scored an amazing 0.15 rating for the Kansas 300 Indy Car race.  The rating represents 171,000 households.

171,000?  Holy crap there were probably more fans in attendance at Talladega than were watching that Indy Car race on TV.  And the turnout for the Kansas race was abysmal at best (but let's blame that on weather).

Seriously though... why do they even bother racing this series anymore?  It's plainly evident that there is no interest from the "higher ups" in making this anything more than a weekend hobby for rich jet-setters.

Speaking of insanity... here's another good article:  IRL Thinking Big in China.

The Indy Racing League is taking a serious look at holding a race in China as early as 2011. Series officials said there are several good reasons why the league may want to head to the nation of 1.33 billion people.

“We’re looking at one existing and one new facility,” [IRL president of commercial division Terry] Angstadt told IBJ (Indianapolis Business Journal). “Chinese officials said they want a venue that will hold 500,000 people.”

lol... I don't even know what to say.  They want to race at a venue that holds a half-million people and they can't even get over 170,000 people to watch a race for free on TV?  I don't get it.

I'm in a mood to give useless advice tonight so here's a tidbit to offer:  I don't think that flying teams to the other side of the world to run a race in front of 495,000 empty seats while being 12 time zones away from your core audience is going to do much to build fan interest here in America.  I know that probably sounds astonishingly impossible, but I'd wager it's true.

Wait -- this explains it:

“A lot of our corporate partners and team sponsors have a serious interest in being in China,” Angstadt said. “Lots of IRL companies have business relations in China. For instance, Penske has operations in China and Menard’s buys in China. A race there would allow them to enhance those relationships and possibly forge new ones.”

Forget about Penske and Menard's -- what are you doing to attract fans to the sport?