[DeBora4BobbyL]

Ellen, they also may use random sampling to see what the entire population of race fans. I am not sure. I do know of a couple of places that you could email and ask who and how they get these numbers. Also, here's an article about the total amount of fans and how many are in what part of the United States as well as the fact that over 40% are women: http://www.motherjones.com/news/dail...02/02_722.html

Here's email addresses where you can email people for questions such as where, how, and who gathers this data: (BTW, these email addresses are public information)

Jim Hunter (the BIG wig in NASCAR) jhunter@nascar.com

NASAR fanfeedback@nascar.com

NEXTEL (who sponsors NASCAR) media.relations@nextel.com

TNT (who shows 50% of the races) tnt@turner.com

Benny Parsons who is an exchampion and a commentator and knows everything! Here's the link to where you can send him an email: http://www.racingone.com/goodys/goodys2.html

Finally, here's the link to one of my most favorite places for information, since the rules change everyday. It has a list of frequently asked questions as well as various ways to contact NASCAR. The FAQs are commonly asked questions too: http://www.jayski.com/pages/faqrace.htm

I hope this helps!