The 2009 Indycar Series Champion joins Prime Time Sports to talk about what the sport has to do to regain its popularity across North America. Franchitti also talks about his preferred type of racing and if he plans to make a big racing change.

http://www.fan590.com/ondemand/media.jsp?content=20091105_173114_10608

Pretty good interview and it's great to hear IndyCar talk on the Fan590 since it's all about HOCKEY HOCKEY HOCKEY.

Agree, although it was painfull in the minutes prior to the interview, listening to Bob and the trained monkey display how little they knew about NASCAR, F1, and auto racing in general.

Thanks for sharing that link. It was an OK interview. WTF was that guy asking him about video games for? LOL

I think it was a lame attempt to equate video game players with potential fans. Where they got the idea that racing games were the most popular games I dunno, certainly not at any of the stores I frequent.

rickoblue - 06 November 2009 05:21 PM

I think it was a lame attempt to equate video game players with potential fans. Where they got the idea that racing games were the most popular games I dunno, certainly not at any of the stores I frequent.

Mario Kart and Gran Turismo are both extremely popular and Need for Speed and Forza Motorsport do fairly well. The NASCAR games don't do well, surprisingly.

It's not as popular as some other genres, but there's tens of millions of households with racing games.

rickoblue - 06 November 2009 04:17 PM

Agree, although it was painfull in the minutes prior to the interview, listening to Bob and the trained monkey display how little they knew about NASCAR, F1, and auto racing in general.

Absolutely. McCown said things that just weren't true. It is clear he doesn't watch motorsports. (I don't think he watches many sports at all). His "trained monkey", Jim Kelly, actually wasn't too bad as he kind of defended F1.

rFactor is big, but you won't find it in stores. It's sold as a direct download. Need for Speed is quite popular too. However, based on advertisements, and posters , and online sidebars, the first person stuff is still king.

Mario Kart in the same sentence as racing ?

NASCAR isn't popular for two reasons. First they issue a new game every year when things rarely change and those changes can easily be downloaded. Secondly it's just driving in circles. That's just extremely boring on a video game.

However, there are so MANY Nascar kids and fans that those games sell quite well. In fact, the last one by Papyrus, the Nascar Racing 2003 Season is still in big demand. It seems to have been the best of the lot. On line leagues still use it. For a game that sold, in 2004 for $24.95, it now goes for over $125 for an unopened copy. That speaks of a demand that not many games have.