LOCAL INTEREST - GRAND PRIX OF ST. PETERSBURG
The Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is an Indy Racing League - IndyCar Series race held in St. Petersburg, Florida. The race is telecast each to national audience, live on ESPN or ABC. “GrandPrix-St.Pete.com” is the official website for the weekend long event, with news and other scheduling information pertaining to the race.
The 1.8 mile (2.89 km) race course is classified as a “street circuit” run on existing public roads along the South Yacht Basin of St. Petersburg and connecting with one of two landing strips at the adjacent Albert Whitted Municipal Airport.
Originally envisioned as an east coast “sister” event to the storied Grand Prix of Long Beach, in California, the race was first run as part of the now defunct, rival CART open-wheel racing series, in 2003. A one-year hiatus for the event in 2004 was largely caused by the bankruptcy proceedings and legal challenges for the remaining rights and assets of CART, which was fought between the new Champ Car World Series and the IRL.
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When the race returned in 2005, it was now a part of the IRL - IndyCar series, and marked the first non-oval track event of the Indy Racing League. In the ensuing few years, the stature of the event has risen to a level where it is regarded as one of the “crown-jewels” of the IRL with a status ranking below only the Indianapolis 500.The race this year drew an estimated 125,000 race fans.
Also, beginning with the 2007 season event, a second nationally televised event, the “Acura Sports Car Challenge”, the second race of the season for the American Le Mans Series (ALMS-IMSA) , was held on the same course as part of race weekend.
Notwithstanding, a visitor seeking news, announcements, or information about the next event, scheduled for April 4, 5, & 6, in 2008, will be, to put it mildly, rather underwhelmed by the “GrandPrix-St.Pete.com” website. The website is both poorly designed and archaic by current technical standards.
The website has a small Banner at the top of the page with a proportionately tiny Logo that fails to effectively communicate either the purpose or flavor of the event to the visitor. Navigation is implemented through a series of flat, antiquated left side-bar buttons with titles that are overly general and somewhat indistinguishable. There is no consistent Color Palette to this website, whatsoever. Colors are all bright, primary tones that provide little contrast on the overly expansive page “whitespace”, which makes the nearly all Heading size Text somewhat difficult to view as well.
Indeed, the content itself is overwhelmed by effusive advertisements and self-promotion through event sponsor logos which inundate each page. In addition, the odd selection of Graphic Images, arranged in center-aligned grids, leave the visitor to wonder what the actual purpose of the website is -- as at first glance, it could be a picnic, or summer camp for kids, rather than, focusing on the race and accompanying spectacle.
Moreover, each page within the website scrolls from 10 to 15 lengths, ignoring the research that shows that Content beyond the first 1.5-to-2 page lengths is typically ignored by visitors.
Unfortunately, the “GrandPrix-St.Pete.com” website does not even remotely befit an event of such stature in the open-wheel racing world, but, perhaps does represent a symbolic indictment of the grossly inadequate marketing of the Indy Racing League, as a whole, as it continues to struggle in re-establishing and expanding upon what once was a national fanbase.
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