The Golden Chalice is Audience

This is the Statt Mann Baby. Time to Scatt a little bit.

Sometimes I just don’t understand the marketing mindset in motorsports. The golden chalice, of course, is audience.

NASCAR has been turning over rocks for 20 years looking for more people to look at its motor racing shows. Last year it found one answer in South Central Los Angeles of all places.

It put a show in the L.A. Coliseum and brought in urban entertainment to support it. The reward was box office and TV ratings success.

Then there’s IndyCar. Its audience is shrinking no matter what it believes and tells us. So, what’s it do?

This week, it put its preseason show behind armed guards in bullet proof vests at a millionaire’s retreat in the Southern California desert. To top it off, they called the affair an “open test.”

I’ll give ‘em this: I wasn’t there.

But if you think enough of me, a fan and a member of the media that talks to fans; if you think enough of me to hide behind armed guards on streets paved with gold, you miss the point entirely.

You don’t need to be in South Central, but you need to be somewhere where armed guards aren’t needed to keep me away.

Didn’t you think what that looks like!? Obviously not.

Peace.