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| Press Release |
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The CASA Chronicles (No. 14) |
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Keeping
up with the California Asphalt Sprintcar Association |
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March
9, 2005…San Jose, CA.
Does it only rain on race day here in California? At this writing the California
Asphalt Sprintcar Association has lost two of it’s three race dates early in
the season. Scheduled race number two at Ukiah and race number three at Madera
were both season debuts for CASA at those tracks, and it was hoped each race
could build on the momentum generated after such a good showing in CASA’s
opener at Altamont. Which now seems like eons ago. Looking for positives in all
this rain, at least both those races were postponed before any CASA teams made
the treks to a soggy track. Another positive is that any of the teams who may have
missed the curtain at Altamont, surely have had enough time to ready themselves
for Ukiah on May 14th. Yet another positive, everyone is chomping at the bit to
get racing again. Now all we need is a little help from the weatherman and
Mother Nature. Ukiah does not have Friday practice available due to their
go-kart schedule however, the pit gates open on Saturday at 11:00 AM and
practice is scheduled to begin at 2:00 PM, so CASA teams will have ample time
air-dry any rain related issues. Without a doubt, some of the best news CASA could receive
during this long rain delay came from the ratings department of Comcast
SportsNet television. Comcast Cable TV and Altamont Raceway and Arena had teamed
up this off-season to produce a half-hour racing show called Altamont Speed
Week, to highlight all the racing activity at Altamont. And after two preseason
introduction shows, the first race highlight program for opening night featured
the CASA event as 22 ultra-fast sprint cars took to the historic half-mile.
Brian McClish’s trophy dash win and the bulk of the CASA 50-lap feature won by
Nick Rescino, Jr. took center stage on the broadcast and with some excellent
footage and a very competitive race, many CASA teams saw considerable TV time.
The broadcast is tape-delayed the following Sunday morning to literally millions
of cable subscribers covering nearly the entire Western States. But being the focus of the shows opener and seeing CASA so
prominently featured on TV wasn’t the best part of the news. Comcast and
industry experts set early viewership expectations at numbers achieved for
similar broadcasts and calculated the available audience to arrive at a
best-case scenario of the show returning a point-2 (0.2) rating; or
approximately 4,400 households tuning in for Sunday’s 9:30 AM show. When the
results were tabulated after the first airing, Altamont Speed Week featuring
CASA had drawn five times the industry expectations! A full 1.0 share, which
translates to 22,000 households were watching CASA sprint cars racing at
Altamont. Comcast stated that using their own formula, 66,000 people all over
the Western States saw CASA racing on just the first airing of the program. The
show airs, in its entirety, up to eight times per week until the next
installment is produced from the following race. This gives sports fans several
opportunities to tune in at different viewing times and can attract hundreds of
thousands of viewers. Nearly as many people watched Altamont Speed Week in the
first showing than many local tracks can draw in yearly attendance. This was
certainly great news to Altamont management and serves as an excellent way of
getting still more fans to attend live races. What exactly does all this good news mean to the California
Asphalt Sprintcar Association? It means CASA opportunities are growing as the
organization gains strength and market share here on the west coast. CASA is
very excited to see what the rest of the 2005 season can bring. If it ever stops
raining… Keep in touch with all CASA racing activity through the CASA website: www.casaracing.com |
