Sunday notebook: Bumper crowds...

Outside of the Indianapolis 500, which draws 400,000 fans for the traditional Memorial Day event, it was the first sellout for the IRL since the inaugural Indy 200 at Walt Disney World in 1996.

"Kansas City has become our new second-best event," said Bob Reif, the IRL's senior vice president of sales and marketing. "In terms of big-event atmosphere, when you have a place that seats 75,000 fans and we have more than 75,000 here, this was a great day. This market was starving for this product.

"Orlando was the first official sold out venue for us. Outside of the Indianapolis 500, this is the first sell-out since Orlando. It was not only that the tickets were sold, but also the fans had a great time and a great show and the merchandise sales were great. We keep turning the corner in different areas."

Texas Motor Speedway had a crowd of 70,800 fans attend the IRL race on June 9 and that facility is generally considered the IRL's best market outside of the Indianapolis 500. But it has some competition from Kansas Speedway, which sold season tickets for all its races this season, including the September 30 NASCAR Winston Cup race.


What was most surprising was the fans turned out despite the high heat that has struck the Kansas City area this week. Temperatures were up to 37 Degrees C for Saturday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race causing 220 people to be sent to various treatment centres located around Kansas Speedway.

There was a fear among IRL officials that many of those fans would not return for another day of high heat on Sunday. But the large crowd arrived and enjoyed an exciting Indy car race that kicked off the new Kansas Speedway in grand style.

"I did get concerned, especially when I got back to the hotel on Saturday and heard nothing but heat alert warnings," Reif said. "It turned out to be not a factor today.

"I do like this race date. We are committed to this date for next year and are committed to it. I don't want it to be a night event because night events stink for TV ratings. I'm not interested in running a night event that gets a poor rating, when we can run on Sunday and get a better rating than that."

Kansas Speedway is owned by International Speedway Corporation, which is controlled by NASCAR's France Family out of Daytona Beach, Florida. The IRL and ISC have forged a strong alliance with seven ISC tracks on the IRL schedule next year.

"They are an incredible partner and for us to exceed their expectations at Richmond and here, it has been a great partnership and it continues to build," Reif said. "This was the main event, everybody knew that around here. There were more people here for the IRL race than the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on Saturday.

"It continues to build and as long as we are building, that's the whole theme of the IRL. We're in this thing for the long haul. People know that the cars and drivers in the Indianapolis 500 are coming to their market."

The drivers were excited to see so many fans watch them race after struggling at some venues since the IRL went into operation in 1996.

"The turnout was unexpected," said second-place finisher Sam Hornish Jr. "I'm really pleased to see how many people cam out. I'm glad we put on a good show. There's nothing more I want to do than put on a good show for a full crowd. I hope they all come back next year and bring a friend."

Race winner Eddie Cheever has raced all over the world, first as a Formula 1 driver, later in CART and has been in the IRL since the beginning in 1995. He sees the IRL gaining ground in new markets.

"I love it," Cheever said. "I'm very pleased to be running high-speed circuits like Kansas, a world-class facility, and the people out here like racing. It was a little place out here a little further east, called the Indianapolis 500 that started auto racing.

"It's just fun to be here."


A.J.'S BOY: Donnie Beechler scored a third-place finish for team owner A.J. Foyt and led the race one time for three laps. Beechler began running for Foyt at this year's Indianapolis 500 and has been on a race-to-race basis for the team owner who also has Eliseo Salazar as his driver.

"A.J. has been funding this thing by himself, and that's what's making it so tough for us right now," Beechler said. "So the last few races we've been very cautious out there to try to just roll the car into the trailer. And it got to be where I just couldn't race. I mean, I was so worried about tearing the race car up and not going to the next race that it was just messing with me.

"After Richmond, I just said, `You know what, I have to just run this thing like I have 10 cars, and we have sponsors.' That's what actually got me the ride."

Beechler used that aggressive mindset to drive him to the best IRL finish of his career. "That's all I had for them was a third-place car today," Beechler said. "But A.J. Foyt and his crew did a tremendous job for me.

"We had a really good car from the get-go, first when we came out of the box here on Friday. If you get your car handling, and it sits comfortable up there, it's not like Texas where the banking is a little bit more. I felt comfortable running high."


Defending IRL champion Buddy Lazier had won the last two races entering Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway. Despite having a car that was stuck in fourth gear throughout the race, Lazier was able to finish fifth.

"On a restart 20 laps into the race, I went to shift from fourth to fifth gear and there was a bug `uuuuuuuuuhhhhhh,'" Lazier recalled. "I couldn't go into fifth or sixth gear. Fourth was meant to be a restart gear, not a running gear. I did the best I could to protect my line, which was the low line. If someone wanted to pass me, they would have to do it on the high side. I was taking the shortest distance around the race track.

"My car was bouncing off the rev limiter, so I was using my brake 10 to 15 times every lap so it wouldn't hurt my engine. My car was awesome in the corners. We had a car that was capable of a three-peat, so I can't complain. We just need to keep our momentum up and we sure have a lot of it."