FORMULA ONE Ecclestone has ideas to promote popularity of racing series in U.S.

Only two Formula One races are held in North America every year.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bernie Ecclestone has grand ideas for making his Formula One racing series a success in the United States: He wants a TV deal on a major network, a successful American driver that fans can follow, and one race a year through the streets of Manhattan.
Short of that, Ecclestone knows making F1 a force outside of Europe will always be a challenge.
With just two races a year in North America -- last week's Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal and the U.S. Grand Prix in Indianapolis in September -- and a field full of foreign drivers, the interest in America for Formula One is severely lagging.
"We need more races in America. I'd do 10 a year if I could," Ecclestone said in an interview at last week's Canadian Grand Prix. "But it is never going to happen. So we need to try some other things to catch the attention."
Formula One caught the attention of the rest of the world years ago.
Most televised sport
With the exception of the Olympics and World Cup soccer, it is the most televised sport in the world. But in the United States, it's barely a blip on the racing radar.
Considered the country club of racing series, the globe-hopping F1 crowd goes from Monaco to Montreal to snack on roast duck and Dom Perignon alongside world leaders and gorgeous models.
In NASCAR, fans jump from Martinsville to Michigan for hot dogs and beer with Bubba. Fans cheer for Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr., then rush out to the car dealership to buy a Ford or a Chevy, just like the one their favorite driver races.
In Montreal last week, a crowd of Colombians showed their support for native driver Juan Pablo Montoya by gathering in a parking lot to wave their national flag and chant "Montoya" over and over.
Fans' bases
Montoya, who was based in the United States when he raced for Chip Ganassi in the CART series and won the Indianapolis 500, thinks the fans' bases are just too different.
"NASCAR is run in a small area [the South] with what they call 'rednecks,' with all due respect," he said. "That's where the fan has the same road car that their favorite driver has. Here, it is more about technology and a leading edge.
"It's a totally different series. If you took NASCAR to Europe, it wouldn't do that good, either, because if a fan goes and watches an F1 race and they like speed, they are not going to find NASCAR interesting because NASCAR is more about the racing than the speed."
In some respects, Formula One is a technical exhibition: The top teams spend the most money on the best equipment and win all the races.
In NASCAR, the cars are designed to be as similar as possible with a level playing field that allows one of almost 30 cars to win any given race.
But there are some who believe that despite the differences in racing -- passing is frequent in NASCAR, rare in Formula One -- it's nothing one big household name couldn't fix.
"Americans are always very parochial -- unless it is the Super Bowl or 'Born in the USA,' they don't care for it," said team owner Frank Williams. "But if we could get one or two U.S. drivers, and put them on top teams, we could build a following."
Formula One hasn't had an American driver since Michael Andretti in 1993, and that was a miserable failure.
When Craig Pollock was starting the British American Racing team in the late 1990s, he talked briefly with Jeff Gordon about becoming a teammate to Canadian Jacques Villeneuve.
Gordon declined and probably made the right decision. Although he followed open-wheel racing as child -- he wasn't even overly aware of NASCAR until he was about 18 -- he hadn't come through the European racing ranks and likely would have struggled.
"I know Formula One is considered the World Championship, but it really is everything but the U.S.," he said. "It mainly is European. I mean, what is the hub of Winston Cup racing? Where is the heart? The Southeast. The core of F1 is in Europe."
Indianapolis will host its fourth consecutive Grand Prix this fall, despite attendance dips since 200,000 fans turned out in 2000. Still, the 140,000 that Indy drew last year was one of the biggest crowds of the year for F1.