Quote:
Originally Posted by W2Motorsport
I find it difficult to consider IMSA a step up from Blancpain Europe. Perhaps it's a lateral move at best to go from contesting the most difficult GT3 series on the planet, to running the lowest class of the second best mixed class endurance series. Not to mention the atmosphere and general exposure that is generated from road racing in Europe vs. America is on another level. Here IMSA coverage is sometimes live, sometimes not, on a channel you don't get with basic coverage. The average American vaguely knows some NASCAR drivers (Maybe not anymore as Stewart, Gordon, and Earnhardt are all retired) but have no idea who Felipe Nasir, Earl Bamber, or Romain Dumas are. At the track I would say that the atmosphere is not as good as a WEC race in Europe (I'll be able to compare to Blancpain next Sept. in Nurburgring).
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You're significantly overestimating the impact of GT racing here in Europe! Outside of a few 24h classics (Le Mans, Spa, N'Ring) sportscar and GT races rarely get more than a few thousand spectators.
Here are the numbers for ADAC GT:
Oschersleben > 25.000
Most > 17.800
Red Bull Ring > 16.000
Zandvoort > 14.000
Nürburgring > 18.000
Hockenheim > 18.000
Sachsenring > 25.000
And those are weekend numbers, so you have to divide those by two or three to get the number of the actual people who are at the track at any given time.
I don't have exact figures for Blancpain, but for the races that I have been to, I'd say that they are pulling similar if not slightly smaller crowds than ADAC.
There is a reason why European sportscar and GT teams have crossed the pond time and again