IRL Rain Beats CCWS Fight/ Pathetic Penalty/ Corn to Sponsor IRL Race, Guess Where?/ Kahne Races Open Wheel Car in Memphis
IRL Rain Beats CCWS Fight
The Indy Racing League’s rainout at Michigan beat Champ Car World Series fight at San Jose
in the latest sports rating in this week’s edition of the Sports Business Journal.
<http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article.main&arti
cleId=51492> On a rare non-NASCAR Sunday, the IRL and CCWS had the same time slots on two major broadcast networks, ABC and NBC respectively. The IRL suffered through a rain delay for the complete 2.5 hours of the broadcast. Still, the program drew about 1,118,000 households according to the SBJ.
Over on NBC, we were treated to a so so race with not a ton of passing but it was still better than rain. The CCWS broadcast only drew about 844,000 households according to the SBJ. It was the CCWS race on NBC that made news when Paul Tracy made an ill advised move on the racecourse.
Alex Tagliani, who Tracy ran over then wanted to fight Paul Tracy and let him know how he felt. Unfortunately not a lot of people saw it until it made Sports Center that night.
So ABC and the IRL had more viewers in the US and would have probably had more viewers if the rain never hit the track. The SBJ reports that the 1.1 million households that tuned in to ABC was actually down 19.4 percent from the audience for last year’s race. NASCAR Busch Series race the night before also was subject to rain. The IRL’s rain on ABC beat TNT’s rain by 234,000 households.
The actual Busch race did beat the IRL when it went green by 85,000. The IRL’s rain delay ranked fifth in the broadcast sports ratings according to the SBJ. CCWS did not make the top ten. I guess the moral of this story is that the IRL and CCWS should reunite. Both sides can offer something to the other. They just need to get together.
Pathetic Penalty
I guess probation in Camp Car World Series is worthless. The Indianapolis based open wheel series showed it’s teeth this week when it penalized Paul Tracy a whopping 3 points for fighting with series points leader Sebastien Bourdais after he took Bourdais out at the end of the race. The Frenchman has a chance for the championship while Tracy is 129 points back. Tracy was also fined $25,000. But CCWS unleashed their fury when they extended the Canadian’s probation one more race. The funniest thing about this is Forsythe Championship Racing’s reaction to the “harsh” penalty.
“I believe that the penalty imposed to Paul Tracy for the last lap incident is simply wrong and not appropriate, but we have to accept the decision of the Series even if we don't agree with it,” said Neil Micklewright, Vice President of Team Operations.
Micklewright then went on to ask for a penalty on Sebastien Bourdais for starting the fight. CCWS has got to get some teeth.
Pulling bonsai moves and taking other cars out two races in a row is uncalled for.
Starting a fight but not receiving any penalties is unacceptable.
Finally, probation should mean something. Violating probation and walking away with a slap on the wrist as we say here in the south, “just ain’t right.”
Corn to Sponsor IRL Race, Guess Where?
The Iowa Corn Promotion Board will sponsor the IndyCar Series event at Iowa on June 27, 2007. When the IRL takes the green flag at the new speedway, all of the series cars will run on Ethanol. A natural fit considering the amount of corn that grows in Iowa. Iowa as well as Minnesota sweet corn is a summer favorite of mine. If you have never tried it, you are missing out.
Kahne Races Open Wheel Car in Memphis
I guess you can consider a tricycle an Open Wheel vehicle right? My buddy Craig Wack
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/auto_racing/article/0,1426,MCA_462_4920272,00.html of the Commercial Appeal reports that Kasey Kahne raced a tricycle against kids who live at the Memphis Ronald McDonald House. He also talked about returning to Memphis for the Busch race later this year. Kahne has raced at Memphis before in USAC Silver Crown action. The Memphis track will see some action in the next week. The NHRA is here this weekend and Greg Biffle will test at the paved oval on Monday and Kurt Busch will test at the oval on Tuesday in preparation for the Cup race at Richmond. Memphis and Richmond have similar layouts.
Images appearing in this blog courtesy of TNT, NASCAR Images, SPEED, NBC, ABC, Champ Car World Series, the Indy Racing League, IMS Productions and R.E. Technologies.
The Indy Racing League’s rainout at Michigan beat Champ Car World Series fight at San Jose
in the latest sports rating in this week’s edition of the Sports Business Journal.
<http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article.main&arti
cleId=51492> On a rare non-NASCAR Sunday, the IRL and CCWS had the same time slots on two major broadcast networks, ABC and NBC respectively. The IRL suffered through a rain delay for the complete 2.5 hours of the broadcast. Still, the program drew about 1,118,000 households according to the SBJ.
Over on NBC, we were treated to a so so race with not a ton of passing but it was still better than rain. The CCWS broadcast only drew about 844,000 households according to the SBJ. It was the CCWS race on NBC that made news when Paul Tracy made an ill advised move on the racecourse.
Alex Tagliani, who Tracy ran over then wanted to fight Paul Tracy and let him know how he felt. Unfortunately not a lot of people saw it until it made Sports Center that night.
So ABC and the IRL had more viewers in the US and would have probably had more viewers if the rain never hit the track. The SBJ reports that the 1.1 million households that tuned in to ABC was actually down 19.4 percent from the audience for last year’s race. NASCAR Busch Series race the night before also was subject to rain. The IRL’s rain on ABC beat TNT’s rain by 234,000 households.
The actual Busch race did beat the IRL when it went green by 85,000. The IRL’s rain delay ranked fifth in the broadcast sports ratings according to the SBJ. CCWS did not make the top ten. I guess the moral of this story is that the IRL and CCWS should reunite. Both sides can offer something to the other. They just need to get together.
Pathetic Penalty
I guess probation in Camp Car World Series is worthless. The Indianapolis based open wheel series showed it’s teeth this week when it penalized Paul Tracy a whopping 3 points for fighting with series points leader Sebastien Bourdais after he took Bourdais out at the end of the race. The Frenchman has a chance for the championship while Tracy is 129 points back. Tracy was also fined $25,000. But CCWS unleashed their fury when they extended the Canadian’s probation one more race. The funniest thing about this is Forsythe Championship Racing’s reaction to the “harsh” penalty.
“I believe that the penalty imposed to Paul Tracy for the last lap incident is simply wrong and not appropriate, but we have to accept the decision of the Series even if we don't agree with it,” said Neil Micklewright, Vice President of Team Operations.
Micklewright then went on to ask for a penalty on Sebastien Bourdais for starting the fight. CCWS has got to get some teeth.
Pulling bonsai moves and taking other cars out two races in a row is uncalled for.
Starting a fight but not receiving any penalties is unacceptable.
Finally, probation should mean something. Violating probation and walking away with a slap on the wrist as we say here in the south, “just ain’t right.”
Corn to Sponsor IRL Race, Guess Where?
The Iowa Corn Promotion Board will sponsor the IndyCar Series event at Iowa on June 27, 2007. When the IRL takes the green flag at the new speedway, all of the series cars will run on Ethanol. A natural fit considering the amount of corn that grows in Iowa. Iowa as well as Minnesota sweet corn is a summer favorite of mine. If you have never tried it, you are missing out.
Kahne Races Open Wheel Car in Memphis
I guess you can consider a tricycle an Open Wheel vehicle right? My buddy Craig Wack
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/auto_racing/article/0,1426,MCA_462_4920272,00.html of the Commercial Appeal reports that Kasey Kahne raced a tricycle against kids who live at the Memphis Ronald McDonald House. He also talked about returning to Memphis for the Busch race later this year. Kahne has raced at Memphis before in USAC Silver Crown action. The Memphis track will see some action in the next week. The NHRA is here this weekend and Greg Biffle will test at the paved oval on Monday and Kurt Busch will test at the oval on Tuesday in preparation for the Cup race at Richmond. Memphis and Richmond have similar layouts.
Images appearing in this blog courtesy of TNT, NASCAR Images, SPEED, NBC, ABC, Champ Car World Series, the Indy Racing League, IMS Productions and R.E. Technologies.
posted by Blake Johnson at 11:10 PM
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