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Old 1 Apr 2010, 22:06 (Ref:2665121)   #559
Juarez Jed
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Juarez Jed should be qualifying in the top 10 on the gridJuarez Jed should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
There does seem to be a lot of talk about more variety in chassis and event selection as being the future saviour of the series.
I don't think the schedule is too bad. Personally I miss Milwaukee being a week after Indy but they do have a pretty good mix of the old IRL with Indy and Texas mixed with CART's success stories in Long Beach and the Canadian races, and so on.
As already stated there may be some culling of the less supported oval events at Homestead or Kansas or whatever, and Sao Paolo and Baltimore give hope for the present and future.
There will definately be no return to Surfers, the Qld government has been badly burnt by A1GP and have handed the event promotion from IMG to Supercars to run themselves on a short track that is cheaper to set up.
The days of Indycars being a genuine rival to F1 and running in Europe for example are gone. The Surfers race even at its peak suffered poor ratings in the US due to its timeslot despite it being a massive event in its own right.
Obviously the empty sidepods and pay drivers are indicative that the series is just not "BIG" anymore. Part of that is the poor television deal, as your casual Sunday viewer watches whatever sport is on tv, be it football or baseball or Nascar, because it is given importance by being on network tv. Niche cable sports are deemed to be niche sports period by your non enthusiast.
Sure you can improve the cars and improve the schedule but I don't think that is why the greater public aren't watching. I think it is because American open wheel racing is just not on their radar at all apart from perhaps in the month of May. And a new chassis won't alter that for a long time so I hope the teams and pay drivers can wear out the storm for the sake of us die hard enthusiasts.
Just my 2 cents.
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