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Originally Posted by TheLionKing
If I were to buy CART.....
- Seperate CART from the IRL. IF that means dropping all ovals then do it. The only oval that CART has ran in the past few years that has made money is Milwaukee.
- Pick a name and stick with it. It seems every year the offical name of CART changes. This year it was, "Bridgestone Presents The ChampCar World Series Powered By Ford". How about something simple like ChampCar: Formula America?
- Establish the CART product in the NAFTA region before going back to Europe and Asia. CART's biggest profit races are in Mexico and Canada. Try to add one more race in each country. Keep Austrailia on the schedule because it's profitable and they've been loyal. When we're doing better in America, then head to Europe and then Asia.
- Find a broadcast partner that will actually be a partner. CART pays to get their races on TV now, like an infomercial. There has to be a network that is looking a cutting-edge product. Spike TV is rumored to CART's home for 2004, so hopefully it works out.
- Find American drivers that can compete with the foreign drivers. The best way to do this would be to build up the Toyota Atlantic series. They need to make the cars more powerful so the jump to CART isn't so drastic. The drivers coming over from F-3000 have such an advantage, it's not even funny.
- Convince Bernie Eccelstone to let CART race as a support series in Montreal and Brazil. This way you get your product associated with F-1 and opens you to a new base of fans, when they realize the CART race was better than the F-1 race.
- Start in late February and end the season the first week of September. Race every other week, so casual fans can get into of pattern of knowing when the races are on. That gives enough weekends for a 16 race schedule
- Of those 16 races, no more then 5 of them would be on street courses. As discussed earlier in this thread, most street courses are tight and leave little room for passing. That all leads to bad racing.
- Find that big race and promote it as such. If it's going to Long Beach, fine, just promote it as the big race. I'd love to see a season ending big race also. That's where my Las Vegas pipe-dream would come in. The final race of the year in Las Vegas on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, with the season ending awards banquet that Sunday.
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Wow...Nice ideas. I think I would try to maintain a few ovals. The diversity of CART is what makes it awesome, and really promotes a "marketing" edge. I would go with 10 races in the US, 3 in Canada, 3 in Mexico., to launch the series. I believe in order to build a fanbase in that country, you need to put your product out their. This is why Formula One is so big in Europe. I would agree on a "marquee" race. Also, I would maybe go for a "Triple Crown"-sorta marquee challenge, with an oval, permanent road corse and a street circuit as the three big races. Sorta like the old NASCAR competition, the Winston Million. I would re-build the "development series". I would maybe break it off into three series, with one in each of the three NFTA countries. The focus would be to reduce travel expenses, build up the fanbase in each of the respective countries, and to develop drivers from that nation. Each series could carry only a certain number of foreign drivers. This allows more "homegrown" talent to be produce, and helps create more of a fanbase. Agree with improving the power of the Toyota Atlantic cars. Try to find a marquee sponsor with the dollars and brand.