MDS
27th July 2010, 19:01
I meant to post this before Toronto, but time got away from me. I think if everyone is serious about building the series the league should start doing outreach to other forms of motorsport to boost the field at the bigger non-Indy events.
Toronto was a perfect candidate for event building this year as its a big race that fell on an off weekend for a number of series. Since it was a NASCAR off week so Robby Gordon, Scott Speed and A.J. Allmendinger were available. GP3 and GP2 were off so there was a bevy of talented young drivers available including Canadian boys Robert Wickens and Daniel Morad and rising American Josef Newgarden, not to mention Canadian BAMF Andrew Ranger, and still popular JV. If the stakes are raised to the point where a few cars stand a good chance of missing the race, then you make qualifying more important, and if you had some NASCAR guys in the field you'd probably get some more eye-balls overall.
If ICS had the connections setup where drivers of a certain caliber could reach out to the league and express interest in making certain events, Indy and others, and the league could arrange a team and/or help with sponsorship we'd see more drivers showing up at our bigger events, making them bigger while building the series and teams.
Looking at the schedule there's no reason why there couldn't be high profile one-offs at Long Beach, Texas and Toronto. NASCAR Drivers race everything on their off weeks and when you look at guys like Scott Speed, A.J. Allmendinger and Sam Hornish who are all looking at losing their their rides solid runs in another series would help their stock in NASCAR and give them a connection to another series. Similarly they could build Motegi into a true Japanese Indy 500 by helping to get more Japanese drivers like Sakon Yamamoto and Kohei Hirate into the race and build up that event more. NASCAR did a great job of recruiting local drivers and sponsors when it raced in Japan, Mexico and Canada.
Of course it would cost a good bit of capitol outlay, and require at least one full time staff member dedicated making connections to sponsors and drivers in other series, but I think it would pay for itself in prestige, and potentially ratings.
Toronto was a perfect candidate for event building this year as its a big race that fell on an off weekend for a number of series. Since it was a NASCAR off week so Robby Gordon, Scott Speed and A.J. Allmendinger were available. GP3 and GP2 were off so there was a bevy of talented young drivers available including Canadian boys Robert Wickens and Daniel Morad and rising American Josef Newgarden, not to mention Canadian BAMF Andrew Ranger, and still popular JV. If the stakes are raised to the point where a few cars stand a good chance of missing the race, then you make qualifying more important, and if you had some NASCAR guys in the field you'd probably get some more eye-balls overall.
If ICS had the connections setup where drivers of a certain caliber could reach out to the league and express interest in making certain events, Indy and others, and the league could arrange a team and/or help with sponsorship we'd see more drivers showing up at our bigger events, making them bigger while building the series and teams.
Looking at the schedule there's no reason why there couldn't be high profile one-offs at Long Beach, Texas and Toronto. NASCAR Drivers race everything on their off weeks and when you look at guys like Scott Speed, A.J. Allmendinger and Sam Hornish who are all looking at losing their their rides solid runs in another series would help their stock in NASCAR and give them a connection to another series. Similarly they could build Motegi into a true Japanese Indy 500 by helping to get more Japanese drivers like Sakon Yamamoto and Kohei Hirate into the race and build up that event more. NASCAR did a great job of recruiting local drivers and sponsors when it raced in Japan, Mexico and Canada.
Of course it would cost a good bit of capitol outlay, and require at least one full time staff member dedicated making connections to sponsors and drivers in other series, but I think it would pay for itself in prestige, and potentially ratings.