PING Ziggy : Attendance today?

[The Real Delaney]

The place looked empty on TV. I mean EMPTY. What is your impression given your location at Ground Zero, both in general (total count, actual number of knowledgable fans, etc), and how it all compares to the years past.

FTG ...

[Eagle104]

I won't speak for Ziggy, but i can tell you there were dozens and dozens there today.

[Ziggy]

There were even less grandstands open, with even fewer people in them

The good news, the pole run by Buddy Rice was upstaged in my stand by a couple of clowns doing beer bongs. They had the entire 300 of us claping and cheering.

Im no Robin Miller mind you, but less than 1/128th full

Went with 'bird and a couple of other friends. We had fun, hell, we had the place to ourselves pretty much.

I saw you drive by Eagle. Where did you get that car?

Ziggy

[Eagle104]

:o

I saw you drive by Eagle. Where did you get that car?

Uh...you saw a guy who turns 50 in a couple of days...and still needs to borrow mom's car! :o :eek: :D

Sorry i couldn't stop by. Next wknd i'll have time...but, after checking the forums for a few minutes right now, i have to get back to work on the editing.

[Ziggy]

I will see you Friday for sure

Save me a seat!

Ziggy

[sundaydriver2]

So were there really only about 4k people total?? :gomer:

[pchall]

So were there really only about 4k people total?? :gomer:

And the Indy Scar, while imploring people to turn out, was giving advice on how to avoid the traffic from a massive crowd of 25 thousand.

[JT265]

I can't speak to the attendance now, but I did phone the IMS ticket office to ask when quals started.

They replied, "When can you be here?"

:D

[Ziggy]

Im not in the crowd counting game, cause anything I say can be refuted by people who were not even there.

I have several pictures of pole winners in my home, along with other cars and drivers whom I thought worthy of my attention.

Swede Savage, 1973 quals, place was packed
Joe Leonard 1972 quals, place was packed (and I was there)
Mike Mosley 1981 not as packed, but a throng indeed
Jim Vasser 1993 sparse, pic is from 3rd or 4th day
Jim Vasser 1995, sparse, pic was a reshoot, dont know which day it was taken

bottom line. I have seen more people at a Pat Travers Band concert 27 years after PT lost his Polydor deal. You have to remember that IMS is a freakin' huge racing facility. There are no doubt thousands of employee's. THOUSANDS. There could not have been more than 3000 people in the North Vista, and I had better things to do than count them. I did count 12 folks in the North East (3rd vista) with 'birds looking glasses. There were 12 spotters in the crows nest as well. Mainstraight? most of it closed, a block or so of very sparse population, then elzippo (and I think these stands leading into one on the outside are closed due to work not being finished on them) Turn One was as spotty as the stand I was sitting in. Inside pit lane, bad angle to judge from my seat, most of it was empty (and its huge as well) Looked like Turn 2 was closed, and this is usually the case for timetrials since 79 or 80

So being generous, lets say for the sake of argument there were 3K where we were. Throw in 3K for the other end. Give you 3K for the outside main straight, and a big whopping catch all of 5K for pit lane (inside), oh, and dont forget the 24 guys in the North East Vista for a grand total of 14,024 plus the , oh I dont know, 3 thousand employee's and service workers

So, less than 20K with everybody from Tony to Buddy to the guy replacing the hand towels in the bathroom would be a fair assesment (sp) from this quarter

Is it up from last year, uh, I dont think so. I really dont

Ziggy

[fourrunner]

Good one JT !!!



Don't forget the 300 Diehard fans at TF that were there in Spirit ! The ones with the "I'm Eddie Cheevers Fluffer" T-Shirts ;)

[Railbird]

Make no mistake!

Today's crowd was larger in every measurable catagory......

than yesterday's

Hell we had fun, but it is kinda depressing to see the place so bare.

Buddy was a highlite as was Bruno. Buddy was always one of my Atlantics favorites and a guy Zig and I know does the go-fast stuff on Whiney's car.


Great quote from my wife after I got home:

(she had seen a little of the TV broadcast)

"They got a break on the weather, it gave them an excuse for that crowd"

[Sean O'Gorman]

I had quals (or should I say the practice session) on at work today and they did a retrospective on 1996 pole day. Even the crowd then looked massive compared to what I saw on TV today.

[cart7]

I've been to a couple rainout pole days that had more people wraslin in the snake pit than showed up today.

For perspective, the hockey game that came on after the first couple hours of ABC coverage ended had more fans in the stands than showed up at Indy today.

[DaveL]

I know each and every person who were in the front stretch grandstands today.

12 of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.

In 1992 when Guerrero made his pole run after a long rain delay the stands looked like a race day crowd, so I don't want to hear the weather excuses.

[SteveH]

Twice I've gone to first day of time trials in the rain when we knew there was little if any chance of seeing a car run. The last time was in the late 80's. In either case there were more fans at the track than there were today.

[DaveL]

Twice I've gone to first day of time trials in the rain when we knew there was little if any chance of seeing a car run. The last time was in the late 80's. In either case there were more fans at the track than there were today.

That's not saying much Steve. More fans go to an Expos/Pirates game than were there today.

Hey, anyone know who that was sitting in turn four?

[Ziggy]

FWIW, This crowd was down, even from last year. IRL quals have always been a non event. Less stands open this year to boot (in north end anyhow) The 2K number given on AR1 was absurd, and this has been rectified.

Crowd threads always bore me to tears. Trust me, the place was pretty barren

Ziggy

[Napoleon]

I have seen more people at a Pat Travers Band concert 27 years after PT lost his Polydor deal.


:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: