INDIANAPOLIS 500 Not-so Greatest Spectacle in Racing

The economy and other races there are factors in the drop-off.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Vendors hawking Indianapolis 500 tickets outside the speedway share a common frustration with the unemployed Indy drivers pitching their skills to owners.
On both sides of the track, there are few takers.
"I'm losing money instead of making it," said William Carter, who was trying to sell tickets during the final week of practice. "There's nobody selling or buying."
Tickets once hotter than the Memorial Day sun are available at bargain prices, and the May 25 race is not sold out -- a rarity in the event's storied 87-year history.
At the monthlong practice and qualifying sessions, attendance was down even as some of the familiar names such as Penske, Rahal and Unser returned after defecting to the rival CART series.
Buzz missing
The open-wheel Indy cars still zipped around the 2 1/2-mile oval, the vibrations jolting the chests of nearby fans. Longtime track announcer Tom Carnegie provided the deep-voiced play-by-play, just as he has for more than 50 years.
What was missing this year was the buzz, the feeling that this was the only race that mattered, and that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was the place to be in May.
The thrill seemed to be gone this year. On some practice days, there appeared to be as many team members milling around the garages as there were fans in the stands.
"Unfortunately, Indianapolis has become a one-day event," said ESPN.com motorsports writer Robin Miller. "It's sad."
Whether it's the split between CART and the IRL, the addition of two more races to the schedule or a soft economy, fans and officials wonder what happened to "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing."
Even as attendance has fallen, ticket prices have continued to rise.
Five years ago, racing fan Bill Sudkamp paid $585 for nine seats around Turn 2. Next year, the same seats will cost him $765.
"I think with the economy that way it is, it's a mistake to raise the prices," said Sudkamp, who has bought the same seats for decades.
He's not the only one feeling the pinch. For the first time in memory, the speedway has advertised tickets on radio and in newspapers. A week before the race, ticket brokers were dumping seats at face value.
Indy Racing League CEO Tony George blames the economy and the speedway's addition of the Brickyard 400, a NASCAR race in August, and the U.S Grand Prix, a Formula One race in September, as factors in the drop-off.
Competition
"With three events and significant challenges in the marketplace, we haven't been able to announce a sellout prior to the event," George said.
Even some corporate sponsors, which prop up most racing leagues with needed cash, are shying away from the pricey suites.
"One of our long-terms corporate clients just came off the most profitable year in their history, yet they have cut in half their ticket orders for all the events," George said. "They're being challenged at the very highest level to improve the bottom line."
The Brickyard's bottom line is that the Indianapolis 500 is still the most attended single-day sporting event in the world. Combined with the other two races, nearly 1 million fans will fill the stands this year.
"It hasn't been the same since the split."
That's been a common refrain at the track ever since CART left in 1996. Former Indy winners such as Al Unser Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi and Bobby Rahal left for CART while the Indy 500 went on as planned with fields of largely unknown drivers. George even guaranteed 25 of the 33 spots in the field to members of his then-fledgling series.
Stake through heart
The split "was kind of like the baseball strike" of 1994, angering and confusing fans, said Miller, a former writer for The Indianapolis Star. "I'm starting to think it's never going to recover."
The IRL won the open-wheel battle -- the big names have trickled back to Indy -- though it's losing the motorsports war to NASCAR. TV ratings are half what they were 10 years ago.
This year's field is considered the deepest since 1995 with only a handful of recognizable drivers absent -- most notably CART's Bruno Junqueira and Paul Tracy. Junqueira was last year's pole winner and Tracy is back in CART full time after losing an appeal of last year's disputed finish.
Charismatic Brazilian Helio Castroneves won his first two Indy starts and took the pole this year. His popularity is helping a new generation connect with the race.