Why is the IRL running at NASCAR tracks like Charlotte and Atlanta?
Traditionally Indy car racing has more or less ignored the Southern U.S. market. There were some attempts in the ’50s and ’60s (races at Darlington, for example), but these did not draw that well at the time for various reasons. In the ’70s and early ’80s, there were Indy car races at Atlanta, but they failed to outdraw the Winston Cup cars at a time when Indy car racing was far more popular nationwide than the stock cars were. (Part of this may have had to do with the fact that the track was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time; nonetheless, it fails to explain the fact that the stock car races were not as effected.) This pattern began when the race was under USAC sanction but accelerated when CART took over the sanction; at that time there were few Indy car drivers that stock car fans could identify with, and some who were there said that they CART regulars tended to look down their noses at the great unwashed mass of stock car fans. (To be fair to CART, this attitude had its roots
