AMS hopes for future Labor Day night race
Get ready for Atlanta Motor Speedway to have night Sprint Cup races – or at least AMS officials want you to get ready for night races.
If Atlanta gets the Labor Day weekend race, the plan would be to run it on Saturday or Sunday night, Speedway Motorsports President H.A.“Humpy” Wheeler told financial analysts Wednesday.
“What we really want to do is try to run Atlanta at night,” Wheeler said. “We have lights down there. Everything changes at night.
"Going to Labor Day weekend, it’s a big holiday. We get a day to get people back. We could run it on Sunday night, which is a big TV night, or Saturday night. It doesn’t matter. It would make all the difference in the world."
SMI is pushing for Atlanta and International Speedway Corp.'s Auto Club Speedway in California to swap their second dates, with California getting a date in late October, while Atlanta would get the Labor Day weekend race.
“It would help the track at Fontana also, being in October, it is a little bit better weather for them,” Wheeler said. “We continue to talk to
ISC and NASCAR about this. Obviously, NASCAR doesn’t want rainouts, they don’t want bad dates.”
And, if SMI had its way, it would run a night race at Atlanta in early June instead of a day race in mid-March.
“The big question if that [swap] is done is what do we do in March?” Wheeler said. “We probably would rather run that March date in early June when we could run it at night again.
“That’s our ultimate wish list. I would say the Labor Day thing looks more encouraging every day, but a lot of politics and so forth have to happen before that comes about.”
Atlanta has battled weather problems with both of its dates in recent years.
While the Sprint Cup race last weekend had good weather, the two days prior to the event included rain and snow. For the Cup race, there were several pockets of empty seats in the grandstands. NASCAR estimated a crowd of 100,000 although that was considered generous by journalists covering the event.
“It was not exactly how we wanted it to be,” SMI Chief Financial Officer William Brooks said. “But it wasn’t materially different than the
prior year.”
As far as attendance last October in Atlanta, Wheeler said that attendance was “softer than the prior year.”
Races at SMI's Lowe’s Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway last fall had increased admissions revenue, Wheeler said.
Wheeler added that the race a couple of weeks ago at SMI's Las Vegas had a fantastic crowd and he is anticipating sellouts this weekend at the company's Bristol Motor Speedway and at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in July.
In other items from the financial analyst conference call:
• Brooks said that TV revenue for the company will go up from $143 million to $165-170 million because of a 3 percent increase from last year and the addition of the two race weekends at recently purchased New Hampshire
• SMI has sold all of its NASCAR race sponsorships for 2008 and only has one Sprint Cup race sponsorship available for 2009.
• SMI Executive Vice President Marcus Smith said that the company has been pleased with the first two months of struggling merchandise arm Motorsports Authentics, a 50-50 venture between SMI and ISC.
Smith said Motorsports Authentics is anticipating a break-even year. Last year, the company lost nearly $43 million, according to financial statements previously released by ISC.
“The biggest change we’re making in the business that should insulate us from the problems that we had in 2007 is in our supply chain management, being able to anticipate changes going forward and not be stuck with so much inventory at the end of the year if we do have driver-sponsor changes,” Smith said. “The rest of the business is being tuned up with increased sales expertise in our retail channels and direct-to-consumer channels as well.”
• SMI officials also indicated they are considering getting out of the oil and gas investment business.
Earlier today, SMI reported a net loss of $20.2 million, or 46 cents per diluted share, in the last quarter of last year after earning $28.8 million, or 65 cents per diluted share in the same period a year earlier
Revenue in the latest quarter fell to $141.1 million from $148.2 million in 2007
For the year, SMI reported earnings of $38.4 million, or 87 cents per diluted share, down from $111.2 million, or $2.53 per diluted share, in 2006 as revenues declined to $561.6 million from $567.4 million.
