Keeping it Off The Wall

Pre-race Report - Round 12
Grand Prix of Chicago
Are ticket sales on Target?
 by Ed Donath 
July 26, 2000

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The sign at the main gate says: "Chicago Motor Speedway at Sportsman's Park". As a former horseracing track Sportsman's Park sat no more than 30,000 spectators. When Chip Ganassi and partners got involved they renovated the facility to accommodate top-echelon motorsports and bumped potential attendance up to about 70,000 - by virtue of 67,000 grandstand seats plus skyboxes and pit row suites. Every one of those seats was occupied for the 1999 inaugural installment of Champ Car racing in the Windy City.

"To have both cars on the podium in this race (Juan Montoya won, Dario Franchitti was second and Jimmy Vasser came third) is a dream come true," Chip Ganassi gushed after last year's race. "To win the Target Grand Prix with Target cars - how much better can it get?!" 

Sportsman's 1-mile oval - it overlooks the Chicago skyline at Cicero, IL - is certainly reminiscent of the layout of a thoroughbred flat track…it features long straights with tight turns. As a horse-racing by-product, the track is 80-feet wide at most points, allowing for side-by-side and multi-cars-wide racing. Most drivers should be able to find a line that suits them.

Beside the aforementioned podium trio, other strong runners last year included pole-sitter Max Papis, Helio Castroneves, Patrick Carpentier and Roberto Moreno (then super-subbing for Christian Fittipaldi). Juanito, in his newfound role as latter-day ovalmeister, should be the odds-on favorite. My dark horse pick for this week at the flat track is Adrian Fernandez, who usually shines in the long-straights oval format…he's due.

The biggest pre-race question: Can last year's attendance success be duplicated? Marketing/promotions specialist Pat Leahy (then with Target Stores; now CART's VP of Marketing) headed up the team that put all of those butts in the seats in 1999. With most ticket sales now accounted 
for - except for walk-ups - it appears that Y2K attendance will fall well short of the inaugural event's success. Perhaps strong last minute promotion will convince some more of the locals to come over to Cicero on raceday.

Meanwhile, as a result of Michael Andretti's second in Michigan, combined with Roberto Moreno's dnf, Michael is the new points leader coming into Chicago. 

A top-six finish this week will guarantee Andretti another two weeks atop the charts (Round 13 - Mid-Ohio - 8/13/00). Moreno needs to finish fourth or better to insure that he will remain in the Top-2 when the Champ Car Circus breaks down its tents late this Sunday afternoon. Yes fans - it is that time of the year when we must begin to look at the FedEx Championship from these kinds of perspectives.

Here's an interesting quote from a famous CART personality about last year's successful promotion of the Target Grand Prix of Chicago:

"We see here what happens when people take the bull by the horns and promote…when Michigan is half-empty, naturally you're disappointed. But when you promote events right, people come. They don't just show up - you have to go out and get them."

No, it wasn't Bobby Rahal, Andrew Craig, Pat Leahy, Roger Penske or Chip Ganassi who summed up racemarketing so eloquently. Thank you for your insights - Jimmy Vasser!

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