I attended my first IRL race this weekend. The race was great - the final laps were run with 1-2 side by side and 3-4 side by side several car lengths behind them. While I was there, I noticed several differences (aside from the obvious open wheel vs. fenders/doors) between a Nascar race and an IRL race.
#1: Nascar is a supersized shopping mall. IRL is an odds and ends bin. At every Nascar event I have attended, there are numerous venders hawking nascar goods. You name it, it's there. You want Tony Stewart Thong underware? - at least 3 trailers sell it. You want a JR handbag - pick a size, color and which paint scheme you want. However, attend an IRL race, and you will have to search for a T-shirt of your favorite driver. Even if you find it, they may be sold out of your size. Add to this problem the fact that 1/2 the trailers at the event sell NASCAR merchandise, you begin to understand the problem.
#2: Women flock to Nascar. Men flock to IRL. At any Nascar event, there are groups of women. In fact, most of the crowds are 50% women. Women watch Nascar races together - without the men in their lives tagging along (or being the tag-a-long with some guy). At the IRL race, groups of men predominate the crowd. Women are less than 30% of the crowd. The women there are tagging along with their man - Who usually has also brought along another 2 guys. (On the plus side, these were the best male - female ratios I've seen since I was in Vegas during the start of the NCAA basketball tournament!)
#3: Nascar pit stops are too long at 14 seconds. I cannot get over how quickly the IRL pit stops worked. I know it isn't fair to compare what a team working on both sides of the car vs. a team who does one side at a time. But the IRL guys have something here.
#4: Neither series does a good job explaining how the race works to new attendees. Due to the noise at the track, it is nearly impossible to explain to a person who is attending the race for the first time what is going on. How about a viewing guide?? Watching a race in person can be radically different than TV - you aren't told what the running story lines are, you don't know who is running for position (unless you can read the scoring pylon which doesn't say who is a lap down), and even if you know one series, the odds are that another is vastly different. Scanners are helpful, but most new attendees don't have or don't know to rent a scanner. I wasn't able to find the IRL radio program, officials or anything else on my scanner than the driver-crew conversations. Those weren't helpful if I didn't know what was going on.
#5: Smaller may be better. I like going to races. I hate large crowds. The IRL crowd was healthy, but not so large that I felt shoehorned into a spot. The price was reasonable - much cheaper than the Nascar race. Parking and leaving a breeze. And the facility had plenty of space for the crowd that was there (stay tuned for the Nascar report at this facility- we'll see how it handles that!).
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