The international flavor and diversity of the Champ Car World Series has never been as evident as it has been this season
source: paddocktalk.com Drivers from 13 different nations have competed in this year's Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford, attracting strong interest from around the world as demonstrated by international television ratings at the midpoint of the 2005 season. In Canada, where Champ Car has three broadcast partners in Global, RDS and TSN, the 20th running of the Molson Indy Toronto, earned a 6.6 share on Global. In addition, the French-language broadcast on RDS attracted another 2.2 share for the Toronto event. One week later, the inaugural West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix of Edmonton earned a combined share of 6.3 on Global and RDS. The result was that nearly a half-million households tuned in throughout Canada for the two events. Television audience numbers in Mexico have been encouraging as well with live broadcasts as well as one-hour highlight versions of Champ Car races also airing on TV Azteca. The Champ Car broadcasts averaged nearly 250,000 households and over 1 million viewers per event on Azteca 7 through the first half of the season with the live races drawing nearly 1.5 million viewers per event. Ratings in Europe have been fueled in part by the recent successes of rookie Champ Car drivers such as Roshfrans Rookie-of-the-Year points leader Timo Glock, Ronnie Bremer and Bjorn Wirdheim, who have sparked strong ratings in their home countries. The Edmonton event drew a solid 4.4 share on Eurosport in Wirdheim's home nation of Sweden while Danish viewers tuned in with a 2.4 share on Eurosport to celebrate Bremer's return to the series, and were rewarded when he powered to a career-best sixth-place finish.
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