They say you can’t go back, no matter how badly you want to.
An ESPN.com reader didn’t like my retro-themed plan to restore the glory of the Indianapolis 500, saying my “back-in-the-day old fogey-ism” wasn’t helpful.
Change is inevitable, but all I was trying to point out with regard to Indy is that some changes have been more successful than others. The wrong things got “fixed,” while areas that needed improvement went ignored.
The Milwaukee Mile is another case in point.
America’s Legendary Oval is undoubtedly a nicer, better facility than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
But the changes took away many of the intangibles that made it such a great place to race or spectate.
And based on the small crowds that turned out for the revived “right after Indy” weekend, I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Some veteran drivers would argue that The Mile lost its charm when it was repaved for the 1996 season. Before that, it was as bumpy as any other surface ravaged year in and year out by a Wisconsin winter, and leaders had to factor the undulations into their line as they wound their way through traffic.
Next up was a new outer retaining wall, replacing the old boilerplate, followed by the SAFER Barrier. That certainly made the track, um, safer. But it also made the lightly banked mile oval about four feet narrower, adversely affecting the racing.
Finally, in 2003, they tore down the old main grandstand and replaced it with a modern aluminum and steel structure with a capacity of 25,000. Again, it was done for safety reasons — a loud car stereo or Harley-Davidson might have accidentally imploded the old concrete stadium.
Yet the shiny new grandstand is completely anonymous, stripping The Mile of much of its trademark identity.
That doesn’t even address the loss of the old press box, which was a rickety balcony that hung down from the roof of the covered main grandstand.
Capacity was about 10, and you had to negotiate down a narrow elevated walkway. But what a view once you got there.
And what a sound. One year, I forgot to bring earplugs, and 20 laps in the press nest probably did more damage to my hearing than a hundred rock concerts.
The solution: Move up to the roof of the grandstand, where the view was even more spectacular but the potential for sunburn was vicious.
Also in the 21st century, a modern scoring pylon obtained from a Chicago Motor Speedway liquidation sale replaced the basic 40-year-old scoreboard, and we in the media got upgraded from temporary trailers into a permanent infield pressroom.
All in the name of progress, I understand.
But I’ll miss telling stories years from now about riding out Milwaukee’s inevitable late-spring storms in those rickety Porta-Cabins.
Attendance slumped badly for the Champ Car race at Milwaukee in recent years, and track officials were hopeful that having the Indy Racing League take over the traditional early June date would resuscitate interest.
But the Saturday crowd was pathetic, by far the smallest I have ever seen in more than 20 years of attending or covering races at The Mile. There couldn’t have been more than a thousand people in the joint, and the infield, normally packed, was wide open. I thought race officials were wildly optimistic in their announced race-day attendance of 31,858.
With a history of open-wheel racing even longer than that of Indianapolis, Milwaukee is a bedrock of the sport.
The fact that interest continues to diminish in such a traditional market should worry track and IndyCar Series officials.