IRL hitching a ride with NASCAR
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In racing, drivers can stay in contention by picking a stronger car, planti
ng themselves on its back bumper and "drafting" their way around the track. To some extent, the people who run the Indy Racing League hope the same thing is possible when it comes to the business side of racing.
The IRL's chief marketing officer, Bob Reif, says the series has exciting racing and drivers worth rooting for. The problem, he says, is getting fans to "test drive" the IRL on TV and especially in person.
To help accomplish that, the IRL's management is working to capitalize on the surging mainstream popularity of stock-car racing by cultivating an alliance with NASCAR's all-powerful France family.
Reif says that the league's relationship with International Speedway Corp. — the track-management company that, like NASCAR, is run mainly by Bill France Jr. and members of his immediate family — is second in importance only to the IRL's television package with ABC and ESPN.
Reif is optimistic about the IRL's future but realistic about where it ranks on the sports landscape. "Nobody really knows what the Indy Racing
League is when you get to the mainstream," Reif says. "It hurts me to say that."
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway and NASCAR have partnered for the wildly successful Brickyard 400 since 1994, but a relationship between the Speedway's spinoff series, the IRL, and NASCAR's sister company, ISC, goes back to a meeting between Speedway President Tony George and the Frances in February 2000. The result has been more IRL races at ISC tracks. In 2000, the IRL raced at only one ISC track. That number expands to five this year and seven next year.
"Most of our tracks we're involved with are ovals, and the IRL, they specialize in ovals, so the relationship between International Speedway Corporation and the IRL makes perfect sense," France says.
At the same time, the IRL's rival series, CART, is moving away from ISC-owned tracks. CART won't be returning to Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway or Michigan Speedway next year, and the IRL has scheduled races at both for next year. CART will continue to race at ISC's California Speedway.
Besides a beefier schedule, the most tangible benefit the IRL has received from its relationship with the France family was a packed house for its recent race at ISC's new Kansas Speedway.
One of the most embarrassing problems for the IRL in its short history has been sparsely populated grandstands at several venues outside of Indianapolis, but the Kansas race was a sellout.
What they didn't want you to know, of course, was that fans who wanted to go to the upcoming Winston Cup race at Kansas had to also buy tickets to the IRL race. Reif defends what is essentially an IRL force-feeding by saying the Kansas ticket package is "just like a season ticket for any venue," and Texas Motor Speedway has been doing the same thing for 5 years.
Texas, owned by ISC rival Speedway Motorsports, sells multi-race ticket packages that assure better seats for fans who buy them. But Texas also sells single-race tickets for its Winston Cup race.
Kansas fans might have grumbled about the ticket packages, but they bought and used them. ISC's new Chicagoland Speedway sold seats to its recent Winston Cup race under a similar arrangement, and the IRL's management is waiting to see if fans will show up for the IRL race there later this year.
Are the tracks and the IRL taking advantage of fans' desperation to get their hands on Winston Cup tickets? Maybe, but attendance hasn't been affected by a backlash and the IRL is getting in front of potential new fans. Now, they have to keep some of those fans coming back. "It's about trial and conversion," Reif says.
Reif would like to extend the partnership between the Frances and Georges. Although the IRL sees itself as a viable drawing card on its own, Reif says they would consider running as a support race on the undercard of a Winston Cup weekend. "I'm interested in getting our product in front of the most number of people," Reif says.
The IRL seems more interested in getting close to NASCAR than reconciling with CART. But racing magnate Roger Penske — who owns teams in CART and NASCAR and fielded cars at the IRL-sanctioned Indianapolis 500 this year — says both open-wheel series are in danger of being rendered irrelevant if they don't reunite soon. "I don't think that anybody can say that either series is where they need to be," Penske says. "We've got to have a viable open-wheel series to match with a strong NASCAR show."
Reif says that although the IRL and its teams compete with NASCAR and its teams for sponsorship money, NASCAR has moved so far into the mainstream that the IRL doesn't even consider them competition. "I wouldn't call them competition today," he says. "They've set the bar."