Big crowd at Long Beach practice

[NickFalzone]

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/9381/picture1chh.jpg

I know this is just a small portion of the track, but it looks like a good crowd showed up just for IRL's friday practice session.

More at: http://www.indy500.com/photos/

[F1boat]

That's cool, for IRL and for ALMS as well. These are fantastic championships and deserve the best!

[Hotlavaaaa]

I was there and I can tell you that the turnout seemed really good for a Friday. I've only been once before in 2007, but it definitely seemed more crowded today.

[Civic]

Was there a lot of Friday vouchers? The R/C (radio control) website radiocontrol.me was a sponsor this year with a big display in the convention center. I got my Friday voucher from their website.

I noticed Speedgear was no longer a singular vendor (different series' merchandise in one Speedgear trailer/booth, with a couple Speedgear trailers located around the event) and instead had a trailer for ALMS merchandise and Andretti Green merchandise. IRL merchandise had their own booth. I think official IRL merchandise was handled directly by the IRL or a marketing/sales company hired by the IRL.

Lots of empty seats by the hairpin grandstands during second practice. As for the Friday crowd, it seemed the same as last year but I only go to the hairpin, the convention center, and the balcony at the beginning of the back stretch (Pine and Ocean I think) so I'm not in a good position to compare crowds from previous years. All I know is the food is still expensive and it's enough of a crowd that I'm always bumping other people or I'm the one getting bumped.

[bblocker68]

I've been to 20+ LBGP's and the crowd was bigger than last year by a good margin. The crowd was comparable to 2006, which was busier than most LBGP's.