Click above for more high-res pics from the Gainsco 300

If you've got the Gainsco Auto Insurance Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway TiVo'd and are waiting to watch it, read no further. Chances are that you haven't or aren't going to, though. Because while a spirit of camaraderie prevailed at Homestead, there wasn't a large live or television audience to witness it. Bear in mind, of course, that we're talking about American oval-track racing, whose stock-car counterpart ranks as the largest spectator sport in the country... only by those standards does a headcount of some 20,000 people in the stands count as small. By any other measure, though, the inaugural race of the reunited open-wheel series was a big success, its 26-car field ranking as the largest starting grid of any race (other than the Indy 500) either of the erstwhile separated series has had since 2003.

[Source: AutoWeek]