Derek's claiming that the sign up is set up differently this year according to the mods. And that's why attendance is so low. But according to the mods, attendance will be close to last year.
.. Yeah I don't think so.
If there was truly an attendance decline because people misunderstood the "driving part" then there would be a steep climb in spectators. And the wallet theory isn't it because the economy has been slowly improving. It's simply because people don't want to go back to Indy. If they would've put this years Fest in Texas, or somewhere near it, I think they would've gotten a fairly well attendance number.