Dario does his part at New Hampshire

That Dario Franchitti is an outstanding IndyCar driver is obvious. He is a two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and the defending series champion. His accomplishments speak for themselves.

Therefore, it would seem to follow that Franchitti should be a huge racing star in the United States. However, attendance and television ratings appear to indicate that he is not.

Like most IndyCar drivers, Franchitti is not from the United States. He must therefore work that much harder to establish himself as a competitive product in the U.S. motorsports marketplace.

In that regard, Franchitti has had a very good summer. He seems to have made appearances just about everywhere since May, when he won his second Indy 500.

Franchitti's latest promotional effort was Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where he drove three laps in his Target Ganassi Indy car to promote the series' return to NHMS in 2011. Witnessing a fast race car on the New Hampshire oval no doubt shocked many of the NASCAR Cup partisans.

Personally, I look forward to seeing IndyCar's return to NHMS. I am rooting for Jerry Gappens and Randy Bernard to pull off a highly successful event.

They will need lots of help from IndyCar's "stars". Dario Franchitti appears to be working hard to become exactly that.

Let's hope that Dario becomes the most widely known Scot in the United States since Adam Smith.

Kudos to you, Dario. Don't stop now. Come down here and mingle with the Citizens. Get to a county fair or two this summer. Try the pork tenderloin.

You've only just begun!

Roggespierre

Can IndyCar Sell at New Hampshire?

It is no secret that the IZOD IndyCar Series will announce this weekend that it will return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in 2011.

There are elements of this move that I like very much. NHMS promoter Jerry Gappens hails from the Rust Belt town where I completed my undergraduate studies, the same town that produced John Paul, Jr. Gappens is passionate about IndyCar racing. He has wanted a race date for more than a year.

I also respect Gappens for having been openly critical of the notion of IndyCar staging a race in the parking lot at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

But Can It Work?

I will admit that I attended the IRL race at what was then New Hampshire International Speedway in 1997. I was joined in the grandstands by approximately a dozen of my closest friends.

The race was fantastic. It was won by the handsome young man to the left, Robbie Buhl, who edged former F1 driver Vincenzo Sospiri at the finish line. The win was undoubtedly sweet for Buhl, a former CART Indy Lights champion whose reward had been a part-time ride in Dale Coyne's s#*$box. He then stood on the sidelines while guys like Andre Ribeiro and Carlos Guerrero landed quality rides in CART. Sound familiar, J.R. Hildebrand?

So, yes, Buhl's win was warmly received. Unfortunately, there were virtually no fans there to receive it.

Incidentally, if you do go to the NHMS race next year, allow me to recommend that you include a quick jaunt to Portsmouth, New Hampshire while you're there. It has a great, authentic New England atmosphere without the great, authentic East Coast prices.

A NASCAR Track

Fans who supported CART during the split will no doubt recall that their favorite series drew fine crowds at New Hampshire. Unfortunately, The Split was not all that happened in the 1990s. There was also the unprecedented mainstream rise of a series called NASCAR Cup. NHMS was expanded to make room for all of those NASCAR fans.

One could argue that today's IndyCar Series is effectively a poor imitation of CART, one that features slower, less interesting spec cars and a whole lot less money from tobacco companies and arbitraged supply chains. Can this product draw a respectable crowd at a facility that has added capacity to accommodate NASCAR Cup?

And let's not forget that racing is a tough sell in New England.

Having seen the market breakdown for the 2009 Indianapolis 500 television ratings, I can tell you that the three local markets that had the lowest ratings were Boston, Providence and New York. Yes, there are racing fans in New England, but they tend to like NASCAR, Mods, and Supers. Will they want to watch an international road racing product at New Hampshire Motor Speedway?

As much as I want to see IndyCar succeed at oval tracks, I have serious reservations about this.

If Jerry Gappens can sell this bunch in New England, then he's one helluva race promoter. I wish him good luck and fear that he'll need it.

Roggespierre