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Secret to Selling More Tickets to California Races
2/25/08: SOZ Studios, MI - By Dennis Michelsen "DMIC" (RaceTalkRadio.com)
There is a simple way to sell out a race date at the Auto Club Speedway of Southern California, move the date to Kentucky Speedway! Yes I know the weather was simply awful over the weekend but that is no excuse. NASCAR says it needs to be in Southern California because there are more people here. That might be true but there are more race fans within 300 miles of the Kentucky Speedway! How can I make such a bold claim? Ticket sales do not lie!
One Race Makes It Special
Stop feeding race fans all this bunk about a facility needing two Cup races to make it viable. If that were true then International Speedway Corporation (ISC) would have had their friends at NASCAR give them two races each at Kansas and Chicagoland Speedways. The Chicago area can barely support one NASCAR race. The reason they can sell out one date is that this is the only race in the Chicago area for the Cup stars! One race makes it special and makes it easier to sell out. Add a second race in Chicago and it becomes harder to sell the pack of tickets in this market due to the increased cost! (To get the good seats to the Cup race you have to even buy the Indy race!) Maybe if California's only Cup race was during the Chase for the Championship they could actually sell it out!
Kentucky Speedway Sells
While NASCAR is lucky to get 40,000 fans to show up at the companion event Nationwide Series race at many tracks, the folks at Kentucky Speedway have no trouble selling out that event! Even without the draw of more than a few Cup drivers they have sold that joint out every race in their Busch Series history. Race fans love this place and so do the teams! Every week NASCAR teams are testing at Kentucky Speedway because it is such a terrific facility. Each Busch Series race in the history of Kentucky Speedway has sold over 70,000 tickets! That is seven years in a row for a series that sometimes can't sell even when 20 Cup guys show up at other venues. Last year the Craftsman Truck series sold over 49,000 tickets! Can you imagine how many seats they could sell if they were awarded the Sprint Cup date they deserve?
No Legal Eagle Just What is Right
Yes according to the legal system ISC and NASCAR are two separate entities. Forget looking at the same name involved in both companies. Yes according to the legal eagles what NASCAR has done with race dates is legal. That doesn't mean it is right! Lest we forget the legal system said that since it didn't fit you must acquit! The legal system also told us it was JUST a coincidence that Kansas. Kentucky, Texas, and Chicagoland were all born about the same time yet only Kentucky is lacking of a Cup date! If Kentucky Speedway sold a 25% share to ISC today they would have a Cup date announced by 6pm this evening! Yes folks it is perfectly legal but it doesn't mean it is right. The ironic thing is that everyone is losing in this deal…even NASCAR! A capacity crowd of 100,000 plus crowding into Kentucky Speedway once a year would make NASCAR even more of a story in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. Folks in that region can't get tickets to races at Bristol unless they inherit them! Everyone wins if Kentucky gets to lease a date from ISC instead of racing twice a year at California Speedway!
NASCAR is a BBQ Sport Not for Sushi Crowd
It is darn near impossible to sell ice cubes to Eskimos or screen doors to submarine Captains! Hockey has not been a popular sport in the state of Florida for natural reasons! NASCAR is a barbecue sport. Areas of the country where BBQ is treated like part of the food pyramid NASCAR sells! Southern California is more sushi than BBQ territory and NASCAR is a tough sell. NASCAR brass talks about going back to their roots! No we won't see races return to Rockingham Speedway (Although ARCA racing will on May 4th, get your tickets at www.rockinghamracewaypark.com) or North Wilkesboro. Darlington will never get a second race back. But NASCAR can reward fans in Ohio and Kentucky for supporting Kentucky Speedway with such a fanatic following! Louisville is a huge television market for NASCAR yet they do not have their own Cup date close at hand. Kentucky Speedway deserves a Cup date because it makes sense!
Schedule Solution
While making very few changes to the existing schedule you can easily move Kentucky Speedway into a date that is leased from the good folks at the Auto Club Speedway of Southern California. While they lose a date they get paid off every year without having to work to sell one ticket! We move Kentucky Speedway into the Mother's Day Weekend date while shifting Darlington to their historic Labor Day Weekend date of old. A few other changes and presto change-o we have a schedule that works! If Darlington can sell out Mother's Day, how do you think they would do on their traditional date under the lights? There is a reason Riverside and Ontario Speedways died and why California Speedway can't support two races. Southern California is not known for their BBQ and therefore is not NASCAR country! Kentucky is and the bottom line of all of this is that Kentucky Speedway has paid their dues and deserves a race to call their own! It makes economic sense for NASCAR and ISC too.
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