Will The IRL Now Gain Some Momentum?

[indycool]

Excellent thoughts posted here.

I would think that ABC would certainly consider moving the Texas race, if plausible. Danica's on the SI cover this week. Wheldon was on the Budweiser Hot Seat on ESPN SportsCenter this morning and he's all over the print media in Europe. Texas is a place where the IRL has made its mark outside of Indy and it has an excellent promoter there that everyone can bet will hype the daylights out of it. Even Jeff Gordon has said publicly that, when he has time, he wouldn't miss a Texas IRL race on TV.

The thing Danica brought to the party at Indy was a fuse-lighter. It created a focus on the race so that it actually UPGRADED attention on other angles and aspects of the "500"....Penske pulling both drivers in the new qualifying format to go after the pole......Rahal NOT doing it with Danica.....Brack replacing Rice....all the drivers going to NYC during race week....the race itself was one of the best in memory. All those stories exploded higher to public consciousness after Danica Mania touched it off.

It ACTS like the IRL will try to maximize this as much as possible. I don't think NASCAR fans will just throw NASCAR away because of it, but it sure will trick up awareness. Incidentally, I've had the same experiences as Tim at both Kentucky and Nashville. You sit up in the stands with a bunch of NASCAR people and they all ask questions after saying, "Wow, your guys run FAST!" And they come back.

Wheldon answered on SportsCenter to the "Fact or Fiction" question if Danica would win a race this year, "Fact." Time will tell how many people will want to A) Be there, or B) Watch on TV if/when she does.