I remember TOG once saying that he had numbers that supported Robby being very popular worldwide (or at least knew where to find them). It's very possible that I misunderstood what was being said, but I am interested in seeing those numbers if they exist.
yes, Robby has tremendous worldwide interest during Dakar, and some of those countries also carry over into the cup season. The month of January is a very exciting time.
Well I would like to think Robby Gordon is a much more known name than Jeff or Jimmy for sure based on the below numbers. A quote from motorsport.com
"The Dakar Rally achieved a substantial range on its premiere in South America in 2009. The number of TV features amounted to 1,130 in the 189 countries where television reports about the desert classic were shown. On the South American continent alone, where only five countries were evaluated, there were almost 300 million viewers. However, in the other nations around the world - from China to Canada, from New Zealand to Russia, from South Africa to Denmark - the "Dakar" is a hip subject immediately after the New Year, and not only in the sports programmes. In 2009, 2.2 billion television viewers worldwide followed the television reports - tendency increasing."
According to NASCAR.com- the 2007 avg. was 9.7 million viewers, but I have read else where that it is now down to abut 7.5 million viewers.
Using Twitter as a measure... Elliott SAdler has just under 20,000 followers, Mikey almost 35,000, Max Papis 10,700.
Robby has almost 10,000 and the Planet only about 1200.
Kyle Busch just got on Twitter and has almost 17,000 already. But Nelson Piquet Jr. has almost 110,000.
SPEED TV has turned into an absolute joke. I mean a show about chefs and Nascar, seriously give me a break. Damn I remember turning onto SPEED and seeing at least some kind of racing. This is the kind of BS that Nascar as a whole is turning into, Think about it Nascar is just a WWF show, IRL is on life support, Formula 1 is a lap fest (when is the last time there was a race win pass in that series??). At least we have Danica mania...I am pissed off about the whole state of motorsports...End of rant