Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Did NASCAR Flop In Quebec?

NASCAR came to Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve last weekend, and the Conservative Party of Canada sponsored Car 29, driven by none other than Pierre Bourque. Their reasoning? According to party spokespeople, the move was designed to reach out to an audience (stock car fans) that might be beyond normal channels of communication.

How successful are they likely to be in this attempt? Here are a few facts to make you go hmmm!

From wiki, the average attendance at a NASCAR race: 186,000.

From boomtickets, the seating capacity at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve: 100,000.

From Dave Feschuck in the Star, attendance at the race-rack Saturday afternoon: 68,150.

Hardly a tidal wave of humanity, in other words. In fact, an attendance figure that was way below average. The Tories might do better to convince Celine Dion to wear the party colors. She does about 50,000 per night on a typical tour date.

6 comments:

Burton, Formerly Kingston said...

Your reaching huge here BCL. 128 thousand over two days is an excellent turn out for the first time the Busch series ran in Montreal, I would expect fifty percent more if it had been NASCAR itself with the big name draws of Jeff Gordon and others. Remember this was a try out do see how it would go and both NASCAR and the organizers in Montreal were thrilled with the attendance. The walk up ticket sales were bigger then for F1. Your dislike for this sport is really quite obvious.

bigcitylib said...

The Canadian Grand Prix this year (same place) had 300,000 over three days and 120,000 on race day.

Anonymous said...

Here are a few more FACTS for you from Nascar.com

The wild ending capped a brilliant weekend for NASCAR and Stock Car Montreal in their first partnership. A crowd of 68,150 began packing the grandstands hours before the race, and event organizers said the walk-up crowd was the best the circuit has ever drawn.

Although the annual Formula One event draws upward of 100,000 fans, organizers were ecstatic with their two-day total of 129,473 because no one was certain how the open-wheel crazed nation would accept the full-bodied stock cars.

"This has been better than we could have dreamed for," general manager Martin Spalding said.

Can celine Dion even drive?

Möbius said...

You forgot to say "harrumph!".

Anonymous said...

OK. But Pierre Bourque as the next Gilles Villeneuve? Let's ponder that for two seconds. HAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Anonymous said...

Dion as the next PM ?
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha !!!!!