QuestionQUESTION: How many people could a town with approximately 20,000 people, expect to draw to a Nascar event if they could get Nascar to come to their town?
If the event drew a large enough crowd to warrant having the "show," then how would one go about finding out how to get them to come and race, If we build a regulation track.
...And does this sound like a crazy idea?
JD Daniels............McAlester, Ok 74501
ANSWER: First of all, I know McAlester, I lived in Ponca City for 10 years. The question isn't how big the town or even whether they built a track. The question is whether NASCAR would give them a weekend for a race and the answer is not hardly. Unfortunately for most places the schedule is already filled, the tracks that already have a race aren't going to give it up so those of us who have followed NASCAR for TOO many years have seen the demise of tracks like North Wilkesboro, bought by the people who own Charlotte and New Hampshire and then closed so they could use those weekends for their own races. Rockingham, one of my personal favorites was bought by the owners of NASCAR and closed so they could take the weekends for other tracks.
The problem is: the drivers and teams are already over extended race-wise and they aren't going to race any more weekends than they already do. Any town, anywhere could build a track and if they had a NASCAR sanctioned race it would most likely sell out, irregardless of the size of the town. But NASCAR or any other track owners giving up the weekends they already have? Not a chance.
By the way, they built a 1 1/2 mile superspeedway in Kentucky, figuring if they built a big beautiful track surely NASCAR would give them a race. Well, they have a Busch race, a Craftsman Truck race but no Nextel Cup race. Just ain't no weekends left for them.
Just be glad you have Ft Worth a few hours drive away.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: So, MAYBE we could get a Busch race, or or maybe something like a tractor pull or monster truck thing or something similar, but definately NOT a Nascar race. Hmmm...
Would ANY of those be a good possibility for a potiential revenue generator for an area such as this, in your opinion?
..And how hard would any one of those be for us to get?
Jd Daniels McAlester, Ok. 74501
AnswerI'm sure any one of those would be a revenue generator for the area. The question is would the builders of a multi-multi-million dollar track generate enough revnue to break even? I doubt it. Who you going to find to risk hundreds of millions of dollars to build a track without a guarantee of breaking even? Not many!
Go enjoy your local dirt track. I do. Go to my local every Sat. nite I'm off! Cheap and fun!
