The recent merger of the CART open wheel series with the IRL means that for the first time since the split of twelve years ago all the top stars and teams of American open wheel racing will be together again for the 2008 running of the Indianapolis 500.
NASCAR gained tremendously from the open wheel split. Trace the time of NASCAR’s most rapid growth, the 1990s, and it coincides with the time in which Indy Car racing was in its period of greatest decline. Also, NASCAR’s greatest coup of that time period was to secure a date at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway, racing there for the first time in 1994.
Now, it is NASCAR that finds itself facing some of the very same problems that tore Indy racing apart a decade ago. Many long time fans feel as though they have been left behind by a sport that got “too big for its britches”.
As far as not relating to the drivers, NASCAR also faces the same type of issue. Last year, for the first time since NASCAR’s inception no driver from the state of North Carolina won a race.
It sounds as if history could be in the process of repeating itself, only in the opposite direction.
Indy racing now seems to be on somewhat of an upswing. The emergence of Danica Patrick as a winning driver has brought a new wave of interest to that sport.
NASCAR seems to be on the downswing. Several of this season’s events have been run in front of less than full grandstands. Also, television ratings have fallen off sharply over the past two years. Those ratings have improved this season but much of that may simply be due to the fact that this year’s ratings are being compared to those of last year when ratings neared all time lows.
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