How they are crippling the renaissance of the CCCWS and what you can do about it
By Kate Shaw
Photo by Margot Orenchuk and the Champ Car World Series

TORONTO, Canada (August 22, 2004) – The Champ Car World Series has come a long way since this time last year, when we didn’t know yet there’d be a next year. But there are still people out there who have it in their power to stop this renaissance in its tracks, reverse all its gains and bury it in history’s grave. I’m not talking about Tony George and his little hammer, or even about the media people who come to Champ Car races and report that “I hear” next year Tony George will be taking over this venue. George’s motives are well known and we don’t expect him to build up the competition; and media people who rain cold water on our parade are, much as we hate to admit it, are only doing the work for which they are paid ("If it bleeds -- it leads!").

No, the people I am talking about are the people who make up what I call the Brotherhood of the Crying Towel. They are people who call themselves Champ Car fans, but they never miss a chance to point out reasons why Champ Cars is dying, dead or doomed. Their specialty is breaking into a celebration with a loud boo-hoo: let five people be celebrating the large number of people who attended the race in Toronto, and they will break in to say “I heard the IRL will be racing in Toronto next year”; let the congregation be celebrating the defeat of the IRL in securing Portland International Raceway for the next three years for CCWS, and they leap in to remind us that Road America is in trouble “and probably will be gone next year.” If we are celebrating Bourdais’ astounding Sophomore Season and the greatness of the Newman-Haas team, the Crying Towels are there to tell us the whole team is, “I hear” defecting to the IRL. So attendance is up by 25,000 at Denver, so what? Attendance at Road America was DOWN! So what if a rumour that Paul Tracy will show up at a venue to sign autographs draws 1,000 people to the venue? “I hear Paul Tracy is going to NASCAR next year!” wails the Crying Towel brigade. Nothing can be good, nothing can be positive, nothing can succeed. There are no silver linings, no positive signs. All is gloom, despair, futility and failure. Or so the Crying Towels want us to believe.

To explain it a little better, take it out of the realm of racing.  Divorce rates are going down and that is a good thing.  But a Crying Towel can't allow anything to be good, so he believes that divorce is inevitable and he tries his best to encourage it to continue.  He will go to his best friend’s wedding and point out that John is a drunk and Margaret is fat; he'll show up at John and Margaret’s 25th anniversary party and remind people that John’s business is being audited by the IRS and Margaret’s diet isn’t working and “I hear” their children are living under a bridge in Toronto; and he'll go to John’s funeral and remind everyone that when John was in high school he was suspended for six months for threatening his science teacher, and once he got thrown out of a hotel in Rome.  John and Margaret had 50 years of happiness together, but all the Crying Towel is interested in is pointing out what went wrong.

Now I am not advocating that we become the kind of cult cheerleaders that surround Saint John Kerry and go into spasms whenever anyone questions anything he has said or done. But I am definitely advocating that those who call themselves “Champ Car Fans” try to find ways to boost the series, not hasten to tear it down. Keeping up a constant drumbeat of futility and failure is the surest way to make futility and failure appear.

So what am I advocating that fans of Champ Cars do? Well, here are a few suggestions.

Perception is everything in the business world. If the business is drawing customers and the customers are happy, that is a sure way to get more customers in through the doors. So, when one of CCWS’ weaknesses is advertising and promotion, why are the fans only advertising failure and promoting unhappiness? Web sites where fans gather should be celebrating the victories and cheering on the competitors, urging their friends to check out a series that after all is a heck of a good deal and has a lot to recommend it.  Point out failure and unhappiness and that's all people will see.  And they won't come back again.

“But the drivers are NOBODIES!” shriek the Crying Towels. So who was Dario Franchitti before he came to Champ Cars? Didn’t he become Somebody because of what he did and the attention he attracted AFTER he joined Champ Cars? Was Helio Castroneves a household name in America when he signed on? Didn’t the Crying Towels wail against Juan Pablo Montoya – “Nobody knows him, he’s a Foreigner, Memo Gidley deserved that ride more … “– until they realized that he was indeed Somebody on the track and began to promote him to their friends?

“But the TV Ratings SUCK!” sobs the congregation. The TV package could be better and nobody doubts that. But it wouldn’t hurt to remind the Crying Congregation that our ratings in the US are better than Brand X.  And besides, the largest audience for CCWS is in Canada and Mexico, and not only are their stats not gathered or considered at all in the published figures, but in Canada the races frequently aren’t even being shown, due to the arrogance of TSN, over which we have no control.

“But we have no AMERICANS in the cars!” boo-hoo the choir. What’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, Japanese? And A.J. Allmendinger, currently leading the Rookie of the Year race in his very first year; he’s from Denmark, right?

All I am suggesting, brothers and sisters, is that you stop the reflexive gloom and doom. Before you parrot the Crying Towel Party Line, stop and think for a minute. Is it True? (ARE there ‘no Americans in the cars’? IS Paul Tracy going to NASCAR next year?) Is it Kind? (Is there any reason to point out that we haven’t yet made Bourdais a household name?) And most of all, Is it Necessary? (Does anybody need to know the latest unproven rumour about someone quitting or some track going broke?) Will anyone be inspired to watch, attend or read about a Champ Car race if you say what you are about to say? Or instead will they be discouraged, upset or disgusted and go do something else?

We cannot individually save the Champ Car World Series. But individually, by joining the Brotherhood of the Crying Towel instead of the Congregation of the Hopeful, we can kill it.

Before you open your mouth in a Champ Car discussion, ask yourself which outcome you really, deep in your heart, want to cause. And govern yourselves accordingly.

NOTE:  This is an opinion piece and is only the opinion of the person who wrote it.  Your opinion may vary.  Go to a Champ Car website and discuss it with your friends.