Bartender Rumors

Alright, so due to my lack of TSN2 which doesn't allow me to watch many of the IRL races on television, I hopped into my local bar. No, not to drown my sorrows or to cuss out TSN, I went in to find out what it would take to get the bar to show the Versus races on television for all those in attendence to see. Well, apparently, they show every single ICS race in the bar, because, listen to this, the bartender used to work for "a high ranking IRL team". I spoke with the bartender, and he told me he worked for whichever team he is talking about for about 4 years, and has spent another 7 or 8 years working for lesser teams and in different series. He also told me he worked for a CART team in the late 90's for a bit. He says he stopped working for the IRL team in '06.

Anyways, I'm pretty shocked at all this, considering the obvious random events that have just occured, and I'm a beer or two deep. So anyways, we get to talking Indy and Indycars and racing in general.

Finally, I brought up the blog, and he promised he'd check it out. But he brings up the fact that he still talks to alot of the guys at the old shop via email and such. Right about now, I'm about two hours in at the bar just talking to the bartender, and about 4 or 5 beer deep. All of a sudden, he starts tossin' out these, I don't know what to call them, predictions I guess. He keeps telling me these things are going to come true in the future, but he doesn't exactly have a timeline for them all.

By this point, I'm not really sober. Safe to say a cab was on the way, not one of the ones that fly into fencing either. But some of the things he is saying sound actually possible. Anyways, I did the best I could to remember what he was saying, and wrote a couple things down. So here you go, I am not proclaiming these as fact, just passing along what he shared with me regarding all things IRL. He did give me permission to share these with you folks.

• Dale Coyne has 2 cars entered at the I500, but the second car isn't for Bruno like everyone says. He says a young American will fill the seat.
• He says NHL has a third car ready for Seabass at Indy if he ends up losing his ride with STR in F1.
• Atleast one former CCWS team will not compete after Indy if they don't impress the sponsors.
• Keith Wiggins has found someone with deep pockets to invest in HVM Racing with him.
• Tags will be with Conquest at Indy.

So like I said, I don't know if any of this is true, these are just the lines I'm being fed by the server of alcohol. However, everything he was saying seemed to sound about right and he said he is going to bring me some old swag from his racing days if I drop in on a race day.

Anyways, I've decided to make this bar a permanant fixture on my schedule. Not sure where it will fit in, but I know I have to find out when I'm working so I can get some good stories out of this guy about working in the garages and such.

Oh, and let me know what you guys think about the lines he is feeding me.

Bad News Bears

It seems we ran into a slight problem this past weekend. Rumor has it that the TV ratings for the Versus run St. Petes GP dropped off from last year, and when I say dropped, I mean like, Humpty Dumpty falling off a wall and shattering. Through Chris Estrada at Indy Racing Revolution, we have a report that the ratings for the St. Pete's GP dropped 60% in viewership from last year, and as the season opener, it dropped 79%. Mind you, he does say he isn't too sure about the source (An Autoracing1.com article, who is quite anti-IRL, or atleast pro-CCWS/CART, was posted on Trackforum) being quite true.

It seems everyone has had an opinion about the subject. Some argue that they were in tough with the season opener going up against the Texas Nascab race with two of the biggest names in the circus battling for the win.

However, the common denominator among any excuse is that Versus is only available in about 3/4 of the homes ESPN and ABC is. And just because it is available, doesn't mean that people get it. Mr. Iannucci claims both he and pressdog had to pay extra to subscribe for Versus in the states. I assume many americans couldn't be bothered to pay the extra dough to get Versus whether it's for the IRL or not. So let's say, of those 70-75 Million homes Versus is available in, only 40 to 50 million actually get the channel either through getting it as part of their current package, or through paying for the extra package. 50 to 60 percent drop in homes equals out to about the 60 percent drop in viewers for the St. Petes race.

So it isn't really that people didn't want to watch it, they just didn't want to watch it enough to spend the extra money on Versus. Unfortunately, it seems that unless something major happens, that won't change.

Maybe the IRL can take the money it is being paid for the TV rights and pay people every person 5 bucks to watch the race? It could be the new marketing campaign, encouraging people to film themselves watching the IRL race, and upload it to youtube, then they will be sent a crisp 5 dollar bill in the mail. Seems logical to get viewership up. In this tough economic time, some people wouldn't mind watching an IRL race, if they are getting paid for it anyways.

I have to agree with Defender of the IRL though, the sky is not falling. The IRL has a strong marketing strategy in place and I think we should give it some time for this strategy and Versus to figure it out and up the ratings a bit. However, the sky is not being held up by a whole lot right now unfortunately, and unless this picks up, the sky might just well tug on those strings and fall pretty fast.

And I'd love to know the numbers for the IRL's feed online. Since up here in the great white north, I don't get TSN2 (the IRL has to realize that Canada can be a strong ratings generator as well), I had to watch pieces of the race online. I'm not sure if I'm the only who had this issue, but the video feed was terribly late, 3 or 4 laps behind, it had no sound, and was terrible quality. If they intend for the webcast to be a quality option for people to watch if they don't have Versus, they need to improve this product quickly. I ended up clicking off the webcast and opened up the IMS radio feed which was my only and best option really. They do a good job, but I wish I could had watched the race properly.

Anyways, until I see the firm numbers from a reputable source, I won't make any of this stuff official, but I feel pretty strongly that AR1 is pretty spot on for this one.

Forget Obama, Danica is in Canada!

Air Force 1 flew into Canada earlier today dropping President Obama off to speak to Prime Minister Harper today. Crowds gathered around the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario of fans hoping to get a glimpse of who my mother calls, "The First President with some rhythm".

But in Toronto, crowds were gathering and gasping at the Canadian International Autoshow. The appearance of Danica Patrick to promote the Honda Indy Toronto stunned the crowds in attendance, possibly even stealing one or two people from the usually heavily populated Nascar Pavilion. She posed for photos in front of a current Dallara in Honda Indy Toronto colors, which actually looked decent, and signed autographs for members of the crowd.

Danica also put some time aside for Canada's top sports talk show host Michael Landsberg of "Off The Record". Landsberg asked her about various things from USF1 to the much talked about tattoo. She does manage to sneak some good sexual innuendo into the conversation though, I'll let you guys check it out for yourselves.

Danica Patrick on Off The Record

I think some of Danica's sponsors might be upset with her appearance. She had some difficulty naming off sponsors (as usual). But all in all, it's a good little piece and some good promotion for the Honda Indy Toronto, and it's nice to see AOWR represented at the Canadian International Autoshow.

And for those of you looking for more information on the Honda Indy Toronto booth at the Canadian International Autoshow, or just the Autoshow in general, IRL blogger Meesh is attending and I'm sure her blog (So... Here's What I'm Thinking) and her website, which is a good read by the way (OpenWheelWorld.net) will have some news on it.