Auto Racing Insider Pete Pistone Posted Thursday, August 27, 2009
JOLIET, Ill. - Some of the best racing of the season will be on display this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.
But I'm afraid only the truest of fans will see it.
The debut of the Camping World Truck Series at Chicagoland along with Saturday night's Indy Racing League event has the potential to be one of the most action-packed doubleheaders of the year.
Heck you can throw in the ARCA Series and the Firestone Indy Lights, also part of the weekend's schedule, and my guess is all four will provide their share of thrills.
But unfortunately those who actually witness the event will be a select number.
Chicago is a major city and maybe one of the most sports-centric markets in the country. While championships are as scarce as a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Sprint Cup win, the Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks monopolize the time of fans year round.
Throw in college and prep events, major golf tournaments, soccer and even the occasional tennis match and trying to breakthrough in the Chicago market is a tough task to say the least.
Chicagoland Speedway has done a very good job educating the mainly stick and ball media in this town about the world of racing. That in turn has helped the track more often than not sell out the annual Sprint Cup-Nationwide Series doubleheader that has been on the schedule since 2001.
It's a tougher sell for the track's secondary weekend, which has been the IRL and ARCA until this year when the trucks were thrown into the mix.
Since it was introduced the open wheel event fell in early September most times going head-to-head with the Bears opening the NFL season along with college and high school football going strong. And despite the fact the IRL finishes at Chicagoland are incredible and the racing breathtaking, generating interest going up against so much other competition for attention was an uphill battle to say the least.
Other than Danica Patrick most of the city's sports media would rather concentrate on the latest Bears injury or Cubs loss when the Indy Cars come to town at this time of the year.
Sliding back a few weeks at least avoided some confrontation, but to say there isn't much of a buzz for this weekend of racing is an understatement.
The speedway's much-maligned "Track Pack" policy has also been a fly in the ointment and came under heavy criticism this season. Chicagoland isn't alone as a track that basically presents season ticket purchase only packages, meaning a fan can't attend any individual event unless they bought a pack good for all the track's races.
The economy and financial pressure of the world coupled with that ticket package resulted in a crowd well below the 75,000 capacity for last July's marquee Sprint Cup race.
It will be much lower this weekend and the irony is that if a fan decided to attend either Friday night's truck race or Saturday night's IRL race, they'd be forced to buy a package that included races already run a month and a half ago.
To be fair, it was a wise business decision and one that worked when there was demand back in 2001. It doesn't now and new track management will reportedly offer different options in 2010 and rectify the situation.
Here's wishing those that did buy tickets will come out this weekend for both events. The track is maturing into one of the racier mile and a half speedways in NASCAR and the addition of lights last year has added a new layer of prestige to the proceedings.
My prediction is a pair of stellar races here in the backyard of my hometown. Let's hope a large number of fans are watching.
Pete Pistone is the Senior Editor of RacingOne. Pistone is also the co-host of "The Morning Drive," which airs Monday through Friday from 7-11 a.m. ET on Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128. He also hosts the syndicated "SpeedJournal Report," heard on 100 radio stations nationwide and Pistone is a sports reporter/anchor for Chicago's WGN Radio and also hosts weekly auto racing segments on the station. Pistone serves as the national motorsports writer for CBS Sports.com.
