How about Vegas

[Jer]

Is it possible they’d have had the same crowd with only 2-wide? And as for these NHRA sellouts, do they actually turn paying customers away when most are not guaranteed a seat anyway?

Sell out crowds should mean more prize money for the racers right,kinda like the lottery,when more people play the purse gets bigger!

 

[Luke Nieuwhof]

Alan Reinhart wrote in another forum that a sellout is when all available seats have been sold, but general admission tickets can still be sold.
As for whether or not it is possible they'd have had the same crowd with two wide, the Spring Las Vegas race has typically been weak attendance wise.

 

[DrRocket]

in some shots, the crowd of people a the fences looked 2 to 3 deep.

 

[Bubba]

Still don't like 4 wide. It's like having two pucks on the ice during a hockey game.

 

[mastertone]

Still don't like 4 wide. It's like having two pucks on the ice during a hockey game.

BORING BORING BORING!

 

[mick]

well the good thing about 4 lanes is that when only 12 cars show up, you can run a 3-wide format (1st round 4 groups of 3)......just sayin'. it could actually work.
sure seems like the majority of the races the attendance numbers are up. that is great. would like to know if the tv numbers are up too, and/or some kind
of measure for online steaming. do not subscribe to SBJ, and racer.com doesn't seem to be publishing tv numbers this year......nhra season looks to be off to a really good start.

and speaking of two pucks on the ice......us hockey fans can now come to vegas to see nhra AND nhl

 

[my friends call me Zappy]

I live in Vegas, I was there all weekend, it was my first 4 wide race, and I had a great time. BIG crowd compared to recent Vegas 1's. I gotta say I am a fan. And based on the crowd all weekend, you would have to say the casual fan agrees.

I agree, 4wide is awesome !!!

 

[PJ]

It's a freak event in a town that likes spectacles. It seems like a good fit to me. An end of winter, possible spring break time retreat that takes in a special event type of race. Much like the fall event being around Halloween makes for a big party in the party city a perfect match of schedule and location.

it will be interesting to see if the numbers stay up next year or if it was the curiosity of the first one. Also it will be interesting to see if ZMax numbers stay up or if many that would have gone there went to Vegas instead. Also did people not go to Pomona or Phoenix and instead tried out Vegas 4-wide? In other words, maybe they didn't add many new ones but instead just moved the same people around. That will be something that won't be fully known until a few races are done here.

I get the draw, even went to Zmax once to check it out. The feeling was cool but the racing blah. I'm not a fan of it but as long as it only stays a couple of races a year I don't have a problem with them doing it.

 

[mick]

it's a strip of asphalt, bleachers, racers, cars, and announcers. no different than other racing series. i don't understand why attendance fluctuates so much, but it does. it doesn't matter what city it is in. it's the exact same thing in 21 different places. nice to see fans showing up again. the indy car race in phoenix last weekend was an attendance disaster.

 

[Nunz]

it's a strip of asphalt, bleachers, racers, cars, and announcers. no different than other racing series. i don't understand why attendance fluctuates so much, but it does. it doesn't matter what city it is in. it's the exact same thing in 21 different places. nice to see fans showing up again. the indy car race in phoenix last weekend was an attendance disaster.

And like Vegas, the Phoenix NHRA race was well attended. So rather than speculate as to why, or what will happen next year, or next event, etc., I think we should celebrate every event that is successful.

 

[vegasnitro]

it's a strip of asphalt, bleachers, racers, cars, and announcers. no different than other racing series. i don't understand why attendance fluctuates so much, but it does. it doesn't matter what city it is in. it's the exact same thing in 21 different places. nice to see fans showing up again. the indy car race in phoenix last weekend was an attendance disaster.

It has been said many times by me on this forum, IndyCar would KILL to have NHRA's attendance numbers, particularly for the whole weekend. (Indy 500 excepted, of course)

 

[BountyHunter]

U.S. motorsport viewership from last weekend:
1) NASCAR Cup Series at Texas (@FS1): 2.8 million viewers
2) NASCAR Xfinity at TMS (@FoxTV): 1.4M
3) NHRA at Vegas (FS1): 907K
4) F1 at Bahrain (@ESPN-2): 683K
5) Supercross at Seattle (FS1): 363K
6) IndyCar at Phoenix (@NBCSN): 253K

From Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal.... Robin Miller a long time Indy Car reporter said there couldn't have been more than 7,500 people at Saturday nights Phoenix race.

 

[nedannouncer]

^^^^^^ I'm digging those numbers!

It is frustrating to me to constantly hear how "Indy car is on the road to recovery" and we donkey stomp them every weekend (except memorial day) and get ignored.

Brian

 

[T.Smith]

It has been said many times by me on this forum, IndyCar would KILL to have NHRA's attendance numbers, particularly for the whole weekend. (Indy 500 excepted, of course)

Which is amazing to me, because they have a really good mix of drivers, personalities and race teams...that series should be kickin' ass now. They need to figure out how to get Danica in the series for the next 3 years.

 

[robinjackson]

Just back home in England after attending last week's Vegas 4-Wide.

Whatever your views on 4-Wide, it was a tremendous event. The place was packed all three days and was humming with energy even at 8.15 in the morning. Great crowd response, cheering and applauding the racers coming down the return road. Etc.

Contrast that with my first NASCAR experience six weeks earlier: the Folds of Honor/Quiktrip 500 at three-quarters-empty Atlanta Motor Speedway. No life, no atmosphere, few people, a fat fee for the privilege of seeing inside the pits (I didn't bother). Thirty-six cars chuntering round for 3 1/2 hours, checkered flag falls, everyone goes home. I'm prepared to believe this was a one-off and the others are all more fun. But if anyone needs their faith re-affirming in NHRA, I'd say send them to a NASCAR race.

 

[Jack]

Probably fun to watch live (i never have) but almost aggrivating and not easy for me to watch on TV. Glad to hear of the success in Vegas though every successful event is a very good thing.

 

[Jeff]

Well I thought Rickie was pretty happy about the lock up torque converter.....

 

[mick]

craig, thanks for posting those numbers. looked back and found old 'ratings' thread from 2016 where i had posted almost the whole 2016 nhra season
with tv numbers as they were reported by racer.com......2016 vegas 1 was 1.3m viewers......so for some reason the tv audience has been there for this
early season race, but not the live attendance, which this year they hit a home run. hope nhra does well in houston

 

[DrRocket]

The Long Beach Crowd looked pretty good last Sunday for the Indy Car race, as opposed to the Phoenix crowd. Completely different type of venue.

Makes me wonder if "The Powers That Be" would ever consider some type of "street race" for drag racing, say along a newly repaved boulevard in LA, or Chitown...

Might appeal to the "outlaw" crowd. Rattle some downtown office window with some nitro?