"Obviously, being on network TV guarantees you a minimum audience that is much larger than a less than premium cable network. But we need more than that to justify the numbers we need from sponsors and it will take time to build that audience."
Lisles is a great believer in big prize money serving as a lure to drivers, teams, fans and sponsors - as it does in NASCAR and used to at CART's height and in the heydays of the Indy 500. He believes multi-million dollar purses are what's really required to revitalise Champ Car.
"I don't know how much the series owners have spent," he remarked, "but I'm not sure that it would have been more cost-effective for them to have put that entire amount of money into a prize fund and just let market forces do the rest for them. If there was a million dollars to win every race and $10 million to win the championship, we'd have so many cars on the grid it wouldn't be true, and you'd get a huge amount of publicity. Sport is supposed to be about man on man, but the fact of the matter is as soon as you put big money on the line you get a lot more headlines and fan interest.
"We saw that happen in the Atlantic series. The reason they had such a big grid last year was not because it's such a wonderful series but because there's a $2 million carrot hanging there as a way to move up."
Finally, Lisles and the entire Newman/Haas/Lanigan team are motivated this year not only to go after their fourth consecutive championship with Bourdais but also to produce a strong rookie season for Graham Rahal. Young Rahal's deal to drive for the team has taken all winter and more to put together, another indicator of Champ Car's lack of sales power. Despite the poor commercial situation, the team has enjoyed working with their latest rookie over the winter and every one of them is eagerly looking forward to going racing.
