Since its inception in the 1940’s, NASCAR’s geography has been under a constant state of evolution – races and racetracks moving from location to location while maintaining a strong presence in the southeast. Since NASCAR’s push to become a national sport, the short track at North Wilkesboro, North Carolina and one mile track at Rockingham are gone. Darlington, South Carolina now just hosts one race in May while since the addition of New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the early 90’s, new tracks have sprung up from sea to shining sea plus one of the sports biggest events is now held at America’s most historical track, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Some of these moves have been wildly successful. Others have not faired so well, while others are caught up in politics. One thing is for certain, the France family’s track ownership group, International Speedway Corporation, and Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Group seek new faces in new places as soon as next year. Since purchasing the Kentucky Speedway, Smith has sought a Sprint Cup date for the track. His organization also wants a second date at Las Vegas. Meanwhile, International Speedway Corp seeks to add a second date at Kansas.
NASCAR fans have been nervous that as announcements of dates being set for these facilities would result in the other shoe dropping on one of their favorite tracks. Speculation even went so far as Bruton Smith attempting to purchase Dover, a track that despite struggles to fill the stands still attracts well over 100,000 fans event to move one of those dates to Kentucky.
For Smith, the decision appears to be moving one race, the early race, from Atlanta to add a date for one of his tracks. The other would be cutting the summer race at New Hampshire, a move made easy by a dispute with local officials over the cost of providing police and emergency man power to support the event. Atlanta has long been a sore spot failing to attract big crowds. Perhaps the night race, one race before the Chase field is set, Labor Day weekend, the old time slot for the Southern 500 might be the answer.
The France family might find themselves a little more embarrassed by their need to move a date to support Kansas. NASCAR was anxious to return to the Los Angeles market seeing a goldmine in the nation’s second largest TV market. One race a year seemed to go well there, but when the Southern 500 date moved from South Carolina to California, the results not only proved that date a failure, but fans did not support the earlier race either. The Labor Day race was swapped with Atlanta putting the Fontana race in the Chase in a region having no NFL football.
With casino attractions being added to the Kansas track facility, the lure to add a second date appears seductive but Kansas City is not a huge market and is a long distance from other larger markets. The region does love racing, but will two races be sustainable?
Las Vegas is a destination event that depends more on attracting fans from around the country on a vacation like plan rather than building off the local base. Will that work for a second date at Vegas? Could that also work for Kansas?
Finally, Kentucky might appear the safest bet of the changes. Kentucky, southern Ohio, and southern Indiana are hot territory for racing with Bristol, Tennessee and the Brickyard as their closest tracks. The track is also less than an hour’s ride down the Interstates from Cincinnati tapping into that sports media center.
While cancelling dates from New Hampshire, Atlanta, and Fontana are one challenge, juggling the calendar to have the new events occur when the weather is right to attract fans for racing will also create difficulties. The second race of the year now held at Fontana would not work well for Kansas. The early March date scrubbed from Atlanta would not work well for Kentucky nor would it work for Las Vegas right after the first Vegas race; while Vegas surely needs to be held during a cooler part of the year. We could see Smith swapping Infineon’s date with the old March Atlanta date to open up the mid-late June date for Kentucky when Nationwide and Camping World Truck races have been held in Kentucky. Accommodating the other changes will prove more difficult though surely Smith will want a Chase race for Vegas.
No comments:
Post a Comment