Thursday, July 13, 2000 | 7:54 a.m.
HAMPTON, Ga. - When the Indy Racing League came out with its 2001 schedule, Atlanta Motor Speedway wasn't on it.
Not yet, anyway.
On Saturday night, the IRL faces its third - and possibly final - race at the track south of Atlanta, a huge market that has yet to embrace the 5-year-old, open-wheel circuit.
If enough fans show up for the Midas 500 Classic, the sleek Indy cars will probably return for three more years. If not, adios.
"We didn't want to look down the road until we saw how this weekend went," said Ed Clark, president and general manager of the 1.54-mile speedway. "We just want to make sure everything is in line for this race to grow and be successful."
The IRL drew about 42,000 fans for its Atlanta debut in August 1998. But attendance dropped by at least 10,000 last year, even with a more favorable mid-July date when the Braves were out of town and there was no competition from football.
The small crowd stood out even more at the huge Atlanta facility, which has more than 124,000 permanent seats.
"The IRL has made strides in a lot of areas," Clark said. "But they're 5 years old. You can't say it's a start-up thing anymore. We're to the point where we've got to show progress. That means increased attendance. That means more companies coming in to sponsor cars, buy blocks of tickets and fill up suites at the race track. We're at a crossroads."
The 12-race schedule for next year includes the IRL's showcase event, the Indianapolis 500, as well as holdovers Texas (two races), Phoenix, Kentucky and Pikes Peak, Colo. Also joining the circuit will be new tracks in Chicago, Kansas City, Kan., and Nashville, Tenn., along with Richmond, Va., St. Louis and Miami, the latter two dropped from the rival CART schedule.
IRL officials are still negotiating with Las Vegas, another key market that has struggled to draw fans since joining the circuit in 1997. They would like to return to that track as well as Atlanta, both owned by Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc.
"I don't know if lame-duck year is necessarily the right term," said Paul Kelly, an IRL spokesman. "We want to make it work."
One stumbling block is the financial arrangement with the two tracks, which remained on the schedule this year after the IRL agreed to assume much of the financial risk and drop its usual sanctioning fee. For its part, Atlanta Motor Speedway is providing staff and promotional support.
"We're kind of joint promoters," Clark said. "They're paying some of the expenses and we're paying some of the expenses."
The IRL, of course, would prefer a more traditional deal, such as the one it has with another Smith-owned track, Texas Motor Speedway. The negotiations with Atlanta will be guided by how many fans show up Saturday night.
Clark said advance sales are up 30 percent over last year, indicating a crowd larger than 1999 but falling short of the inaugural race.
"It's still not enough," he said. "We should have twice as much attendance for a race like this, something around 60,000 or 70,000. Attendance has got to grow."
History isn't on Atlanta's side. Two open-wheel races were held at the track in the mid-60s, followed by eight races from 1978-83. The winners sound like a who's who of Indy-style racing - Johnny Rutherford, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears, Gordon Johncock - but poor attendance doomed that experiment.
When Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George founded the IRL in 1996 as an open-wheel alternative to Championship Auto Racing Teams, he quickly looked to established stock-car ovals such as Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Loudon, N.H., and Dover, Del., to fill out the schedule.
Loudon and Dover lasted only two years, both the victims of sparse crowds. Charlotte Motor Speedway - yet another Smith-owned track - decided to get out of open-wheel racing when three fans were killed in a 1999 race.
Still, the IRL hopes to make inroads in a traditional NASCAR market such as Atlanta, which annually draws some 150,000 fans for the season-ending race on the Winston Cup circuit.
"Atlanta is racing country," Kelly said. "Yeah, it's deeply involved in stock cars. But we think the people down there are race fans first and foremost."
He believes the IRL has much the same appeal as Winston Cup, known for side-by-side racing, constant lead changes and tight finishes. At the June 10 race in Texas, the lead was exchanged 31 times among eight drivers before Scott Sharp beat Robbie McGehee by 0.059 seconds - the closest finish in IRL history.
Clark was impressed by what he saw.
"Those people who don't come just because it's not a NASCAR race are missing the boat," he said. "It's very exciting. These guys don't mind sticking it in the corners like the NASCAR guys used to do, more than they do today."
The speedway is offering half-price tickets to women and children, hoping to lure new fans. IRL series leader Eddie Cheever drove an Indy-car down Peachtree Street on Wednesday, a promotional stunt designed to show there's racing life beyond Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and company.
"Can it be successful here? Yes," Clark said. "But we've got to change the mind-set."
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