From all indications, the IZOD IndyCar Series' first foray into Brazil was a success. Problems with the track that postponed qualifying and a midrace rainstorm aside, the good outweighed the bad in an important commercial market for Indy car racing.
Although empty spaces in the 40,000-capacity grandstands were visible on television, observers on site reported an overflow crowd with some spectators electing to watch perched in trees lining the 2.6-mile street course. Suite sales were strong and overall race-day attendance was announced as 46,000, a figure solidly in the upper third among IndyCar Series venues.
By scheduling a race in Brazil, the Indy Racing League is following the same path that CART did 15 years ago. Even then, Indy style racing was having increasing difficulty in sourcing sponsorship in the United States, which led CART to pursue foreign investment. Typical of many of CART's events, its Brazilian race (staged on a semi-oval outside Rio de Janeiro) started out with a bang and died with a whimper, the victim of sagging attendance and local politics.
The challenge therefore for the IndyCar Series is to maintain a high level of fan interest and corporate support within Brazil so that the Sao Paulo event has a life beyond the current five-year contract.
The racing itself was pretty darn good by street course standards, even if (as usual) Target Chip Ganassi Racing claimed pole position and Team Penske won the race. There were four on-track passes for the lead and a total of 95 competitive position changes, figures that put many of the IndyCar Series' recent oval races to shame. The key was the near mile-long back straight, which led into a wide hairpin corner -- a perfect recipe for passing that every future street course should factor in.
Without any prior testing, there were bound to be a few problems with the circuit, but they were fairly minor compared with some of CART/Champ Car's disasters like San Jose, Denver and Miami. When drivers could barely control their cars on a patch of the concrete straightaway on Saturday, the IRL made the correct decision to fix the track and postpone qualifying until Sunday morning.
The only downside of that schedule change was that it made for an incredibly long day for most of the race teams, which arrived at the track before dawn yet still had to fly home on Sunday night.
In terms of media, the Brazilian race did pretty well by recent IndyCar standards. The Versus TV broadcast garnered an overnight rating of 0.4 with a peak of 0.6. With a claimed 411,000 households, those ratings were up 30 percent from the 2009 season average on Versus (315,000 households) and up 76 percent from the '09 season opener at St. Petersburg.
The results of the race seemed to satisfy just about everyone, too.
Will Power's victory on his return from injury was a compelling storyline, as was Vitor Meira's similar recovery and drive to third place for A.J. Foyt Racing. Another Brazilian, second-year man Raphael Matos, earned the best finish to date for himself and Luczo Dragon/de Ferran Motorsports, notching fourth place.
Now if only the IndyCar Series could generate the level of excitement Brazilians have for the series in places like Kansas City, Joliet and Homestead.
