Brickyard 400 attendance between 65K and 85K (3rd Update)

UPDATE #3 In this audio interview Robin Miller rips the Brickyard 400 and says there were maybe 50,000 people there (and AR1.com says a 2nd IndyCar race added on Labor Day weekend). He says the race is boring and needs to go away. He says the malaise for oval track racing is everywhere. This year the Speedway placed giant tarps over thousands of seats between Turns 1 and 2, and between Turns 3 and 4, rather than have television cameras showing swaths of empty grandstands.

07/28/14 Indy Star's Curt Cavin also "estimated 30,000" for Saturday's Nationwide Series Lilly Diabetes 250. But a source said that an IMS official "told him 27,000." Still not impressive.

07/28/14 This year’s Nationwide race at Indy drew a mere 15,000 with only a few thousand fans showing up for Friday’s United SportsCar race. Adding those two races to the Brickyard 400 weekend has been a money loser and a waste of time.

07/28/14

With entire grandstands closed off, the Brickyard 400 attendance continues to dwindle

Question: I saw you estimated 85K people for Sunday's Brickyard 400. How accurate do you think that is?

Answer: I'd say it's reasonably close, but I wouldn't be surprised if the count came in at 75,000 or 90,000. My friend Dave Furst of WRTV-6 estimated 65,000, and I think that's probably a tad low, but again, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the actual number. The reality is, it's impossible to know for sure. It's a large facility and people are spread out, some on the infield mounds, some walking around, some arriving late or leaving early. There are suites, too, and I'd expect a lot of them to be occupied on a warm summer afternoon. As I've said in the past, I hate the process of estimating crowd attendance because it goes against the fact-finding exercise journalists are supposed to go through with every other fact we report and distribute.

The other thing is, motor sports seems to be the only place where we don't take the promoter's word for it. We list the attendance figures we're given for the NFL, the NBA and others, so why do we take a stab in the dark in racing? Anyway, it's difficult to say how many were there on Sunday. I estimated 30,000 on Saturday and was told by a somewhat independent source that an IMS official told him 27,000. I estimated 50,000 for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and IMS CEO Mark Miles later came out and said 55,000. The reality is, as long as IMS gets well north of $10 million from the TV contract to host NASCAR, the Brickyard 400 will continue. And whether the crowd was 65,000, 75,000 or 85,000, it still pales in comparison to the Indianapolis 500, and we all agree on that. I can also tell you that a simple crowd estimate tweet draws more comments, pro or con, than anything else I mention. It's certainly a divisive topic. Curt Cavin/Indy Star