Racing News Digest

In these time of economic troubles and NASCAR race tracks having a harder and harder time packing in the fans, some tracks seem to get it and some don’t.

Martinsville Speedway has the right idea and has put forward a great idea to try and draw a crowd in for the race on October 25th this year.

Martinsville has been having problems packing the fans in like most other tracks have. But they have decided that in October they are going to make all the fans the Grand Marshall of the race. That’s right, all the fans at the track are going to scream “Gentleman, Start Your Engines!”. Come on now, that is cool.

This will be the first time in NASCAR history that this will happen. And it doesn’t stop there.

Every fan will also receive a 12×15 commemorative green flag. Following the lead of the NASCAR flagman, fans will participate in the official start of the race by waving their green flags.

“The fans have always been a priority at Martinsville Speedway,” Tony Stewart said. “Honoring every fan as the grand marshal for the Tums Fast Relief 500 is an excellent way to show appreciation for their support. This is a first for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Serving as grand marshal will be an added experience for the fans. Not to be overlooked is the competition on the track. It’s short-track racing at its best. It would be great to finish the day with my third win at Martinsville.”

“NASCAR truly has the best, most loyal fans,” Kahne said. “The NASCAR community continues to come up with creative ways to incorporate the fans. To have them serve as the grand marshal at Martinsville is just another way to give back to the fans and show thanks for their support. It should be a really cool tribute and I’m looking forward to it.”

All of that just sounds pretty cool to me. My wife even piped in and said that we should go. We were there last fall and had a blast. Keep in mind she is saying we should go when that date is smack in the middle of 2 other mini vacations we have planned including, hopefully, a trip to Iowa Speedway Labor Day Weekend.

Great idea by Martinsville Speedway.

Now Chicagoland Speedway is another story. They don’t seem to understand that a lot of people out there are facing some financial difficulties. I am not saying how they are running their track is wrong, it just needs some options especially in these times.

I don’t know if I was off in la-la land or what but I didn’t realize that at Chicagoland Speedway you can not buy just a Sprint Cup ticket. You have to buy a whole ticket package for the weekend. Most are speculating that is the reason a lot of seats were empty at last weekend race. About 20,000 shy in at a track that only holds about 75,000.

What does this “Track Pack” include? Well if you want to attend the Sprint Cup Series, Nationwide Series , Craftsman Truck Series, ARCA ReMax, Indy Lights or the IndyCar series races, then you have to buy the “Track Pack” to attend any one of those races and then getting you into any of the other races.

Does that sound insane? For the most part I say yes it does sound insane. But doesn’t that mean if 55,000 attended Saturday nights event, that those other series also sold that many seats as well. Right? That may be good for those other series. It may even be good for Chicagoland Speedway. But there is no way that is good for the fans.

“We are going to analyze it. We are going to take a hard look at it. It may have worked in the early going with this track. I just think with the economy, it has put pressure on the facility — but even more pressure on the fans. I mean, it’s tough when you’re asking people to buy two of something,” Craig Rust, the new track president at Chicagoland said.

“There is a really strong market for NASCAR here, and I want to make sure we’re filling up that grandstand for our Cup racing. So we’re going to take a hard look at it. Once we do the analysis, we’ll make a decision and let everybody know.”

My wife and I had thought about going to the Cup race this year at Chicagoland. Only about 3 hours or less away. We ended up deciding not to, but I know if we would have had to buy a “Track Pack”, there is no way we would have gone anyway.

And in this economy it sounds insane to me to only offer the fans that one choice. I would have thought NASCAR would have stepped into that thought process.

“I do want to say there is a very strong value in the Track Pack. You get the Nationwide race, the Sprint Cup race, the Camping World [Truck] Series, the IRL … when you really break it down, there is a lot of value there,” he said. “I think probably if we did something with it, we would still offer a season-ticket model to the fans first — so the fans who do want to purchase that, they get a little bit of a better value and maybe some good seats. But we’ll come out with a way, if we do something, that it’s fair to the fans who have been supporting us for eight years.”

I agree, that sounds like a great option. As long as fans can also pick and choose races to pay for. I can see one day (weekend) my wife and I heading down there and getting the Track Pack. But chances are it will be awhile before we do that. Going down for just a Sprint Cup race though, hell yeah, we’d be there (eventually).

I have to be honest. I have no idea how much a Track Pack costs. It can’t be cheap, or at least not as cheap as getting just a Sprint Cup Series. Bad business I say. And let’s face it, the Sprint Cup Series is THE biggest event.