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On Eve Of Indy 500, IndyCar Ponders Ways To Attract Fans For More Than One Weekend

The Verizon IndyCar Series with Sunday's 99th running of the Indianapolis 500 will again attempt to "leverage this morsel of national traction into sustained mainstream relevance" despite the fact that it "has failed" to do so before, according to Brant James of USA TODAY. Its most recent best chance "came a decade ago," when rookie Danica Patrick "punctuated a momentum-generating month by qualifying and finishing a then-gender-best fourth, leading 19 laps." She "became, simply, powerfully 'Danica!'" and "transformed the dynamic of the series over her next seven years in it" before she left for NASCAR full time. IndyCar since that has "recaptured prolonged national attention mostly for tragedy" with incidents like Dan Wheldon’s death at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in '11, Dario Franchitti's crash-related forced retirement in '13 and James Hinchcliffe’s "season-ending crash" last Monday. Meanwhile, IndyCar hopes Verizon "can do what RJ Reynolds did in marketing NASCAR vigorously into a major league sport." Verizon replaced Izod in '14 as the circuit's title sponsor in a five-year deal "with the prospect of directing IndyCar content toward its nearly 103 million customers." Verizon "has boosted awareness for IndyCar, but NASCAR and its exponentially broader sponsor profile remain the model." Chip Ganassi Racing's 20-year-old driver Sage Karam thinks that IndyCar "needs to lure more millennials." Karam: "If we had Justin Bieber come to a race, whether it’s Indianapolis, Iowa, anything, so many people my age would be coming just to see him, but all of a sudden they’re making a connection to the sport" (USA TODAY, 5/22).

DAWN OF A NEW DANICA? USA TODAY's Chris Jenkins writes while female drivers like Patrick and Sarah Fisher were for a while "leading a new wave of female drivers who were well on their way to establishing a permanent presence in the Indianapolis 500," that wave has in recent years "turned into more of a trickle." There will be two females in this year's race, Pippa Mann and Simona de Silvestro, "with the promise of an all-female team coming next year." The main reason for the trickle "might be a fundamental truth of racing that knows no gender restrictions: Speed costs money." Fisher, who is now co-Owner of Carpenter Fisher Hartman Racing, said, "It’s just that money’s so difficult. With the way that our sport is now, it’s just as hard for a guy to get sponsorship as it is for a girl. It’s just tough in general." Fisher thinks that the success of past and current women in racing "is leading to more interest from aspiring young female drivers." It "just won’t happen overnight -- and it might not happen in IndyCar." Fisher: "Certainly, there’s a handful of girls you can Google who are trying to break in. And it’s not just one sport, either, which is neat. Both Danica and I were in IndyCars, so you would think there would be a bunch of girls in open-wheel racing. But instead they’re in off-road; there’s a girl who was in Dakar. There are girls racing all over the place" (USA TODAY, 5/22).

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