Ganassi wants “great events,� not tracks for IndyCar
"I don’t want to go to great tracks — I want to go to great events," Ganassi told Indianapolis’ WXIN-TV after he took part in a motorsports business panel discussion this morning at his race shop in the city. The discussion also featured his drivers, Dario Franchitti, Charlie Kimball and Scott Dixon, as well as Hulman & Co. CEO Mark Miles.
IndyCar has continued to put on some of the best racing anywhere in year two of its current chassis and engine cycle involving the Dallara DW12 and turbocharged powerplants from Chevrolet and Honda. One could also argue that it does indeed have some great events already such as St. Petersburg (Fla.), Long Beach, and, of course, the Indianapolis 500.
However, IndyCar is also still lagging in overall public interest, and in Ganassi’s mind, finding more of the right events is critical in generating needed exposure for the series and hooking the casual fans that will look in on this month’s "500″ but not bother to follow the remainder of the championship.
"Anybody that’s close to a sport…All of us that are too close to it, sometimes they say ‘Hey, that was a great race, that was a great game, that was a great basketball game, what a great race,’" he said.
"We have to realize that there are not that many people that are on the inside of these sports. We need to, and all these sports need to appeal to hundreds of thousands of people if they are going to survive and that’s what we need to do." NBC Sports