Minor fixes would bring Kentucky to Cup standards
By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Thursday, June 19, 2008
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SCENE ON THE CIRCUIT
Speedway Motorsports Inc. Chairman and CEO Bruton Smith, who has a deal pending to buy Kentucky Speedway, brought engineers with him on his visit to the June 14 Nationwide Series race at the 1.5-mile oval.
Were they looking to change the banking in the track? Were they looking to reconfigure the track?
Smith wasn’t saying. But it didn’t take an engineer to realize that the track could use at least a facelift before a Sprint Cup race is awarded to the facility that sits 40 miles from Cincinnati.
After a couple of hours of rain the day before the Nationwide event, NASCAR officials had to work a drying compound into the pores of the track in certain areas to keep water from “weeping” through the track. The track workers were successful, with practice and qualifying not affected and only one weeper appearing during the race. It was fixed under caution.
“The facility is great but they have got to get this water drainage fixed,” driver Kenny Wallace said. “That problem has been here ever since the race track has been here. They have a problem with weak land here. The track has always been real bumpy.”
The fix would be easy, said driver David Stremme.
“When they built this race track, they built it in a big hole and the asphalt set a lot and they had to keep grinding so the IndyCars could run here,” Stremme said. “If they put another layer of asphalt down, an inch and a half or something, it would solve all that. It is just real thin in places.”
Track founder Jerry Carroll said he has been told that the track is ready for a Cup race. He expects Smith to follow through with his promise to add 50,000 seats to increase capacity to 116,000 as well as to make fixes to the track. Track officials announced a sellout and attendance of more than 70,000, although there were some noticeable patches of empty seats during the event.
“[NASCAR President] Mike Helton made a comment one time that Kentucky Speedway is Cup ready,” he said. “We know we will have to add some seats. They always thought that 80,000-some seats was enough. We have a Cup-ready race track.
“I think [Smith] wants to bank a little bit more and have the drainage a little bit better than what we have, even though we work on it every year. We are in this freeze-thaw area and it’s a tough area.”
But it’s a good area in terms of demographics, located 40 miles from Cincinnati (the No. 33 media market in the U.S.), and within 80 miles of the population centers of Louisville, Ky., and Lexington, Ky.
The track has 50 suites as well as a separate 2,000-seat “Bluegrass Club.” It has a pedestrian tunnel underneath the frontstretch. Smith said June 16 he would rebuild the garage area much like he has done at Las Vegas.
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