Bruton Smith: It’s doubtful Sprint Cup will be at Kentucky in 2010
Speedway Motorsports Inc. Chairman Bruton Smith addressed the media Saturday at Kentucky Speedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
SPARTA, Ky. – Hours before the NASCAR Nationwide Series Meijer 300 was to go green at Kentucky Speedway, the big question to track owner Bruton Smith was whether there would be a Sprint Cup race at the track next year.
Smith, chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., sounded pessimistic that it would happen, and Smith is not known for being pessimistic.
“I would like to say, ‘Yes,’ but I don’t know,” Smith said. “It’s doubtful that we get it done. It would take a tremendous cooperation from NASCAR.”
SMI bought Kentucky Speedway last December, and Smith wants to realign one of his Sprint Cup races to the 1.5-mile oval but an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and International Speedway Corp. filed in 2005 by the founders of the track is unresolved.
NASCAR has said it would not consider a realignment request until the case is resolved. A hearing in the U.S. Court of Appeals is scheduled for July 30, and a decision can come from three weeks to six months, and the case still might not be over after that decision.
NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston would not totally close the door on Kentucky’s Cup chances for 2010, but indicated that it is doubtful.
“As we’ve said, there can be no consideration of a Cup date for Kentucky while the litigation is pending,” Poston said. “Having said that, the sanctioning process is currently under way.”
Smith, whose company is not a defendant but is considered a “co-conspirator” in the case, has asked the former owners to drop the lawsuit.
“I’ve begged and pleaded [for it to be dropped],” Smith said. “I’ve done everything I know. … I’ve said from day one I thought it was a bad lawsuit.”
Jerry Carroll, head of the track’s former ownership group that built the track for approximately $152 million and then sold it to SMI for $78.3 million (including $63.3 million assumption of debt), said there would be no dropping of the lawsuit.
“We’re not the guys holding up the race,” Carroll said. “NASCAR controls the race. Not us. … They won’t let him move a race. Not me. If they’re for sure that this [lawsuit] doesn’t have any teeth to it, why in the heck can’t they treat their best promoter in the country better than not letting him move a race?
“That’s being the bully.”
SMI currently has two Cup races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Texas Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Atlanta and New Hampshire are considered the two candidates that could lose a race, but Smith hasn’t said where the race would come from.
Once he gets a commitment to a Cup race, Smith said he would add about 50,000 seats to the track, which currently seats 69,000, as well as add additional roads to and from the facility. He would also move pit road closer to the grandstands – “You saw what I did in Vegas,” Smith said.
“NASCAR appreciates what I do, I hope they do,” Smith said. “I hope that the things that we do and the improvements that we make at speedways – you’ll see that in a few weeks at New Hampshire – that it’s good for the sport.”
