Texas Motor Spwy. Media Day

[rebelracewriter]

Texas Motor Speedway, Media Day 2003 1-29-03

By J M Hallas

Breakfast with Bruton

Since I’m now considered an esteemed member in motorsports journalism, well maybe not esteemed. All right maybe not even a journalist, just a high opinionated, sometimes controversial, race reporter. Anyway, I was invited to attend the TMS 2003 Media day show or as I called it Breakfast with Bruton(Smith). If someone had told me back in 97 when TMS first opened, that I would be having breakfast with track owner, Bruton Smith and General Manager, Eddie Gossage, I would have sent them to nearest shrink to have their head examined. But I guess the old adage, “every dog has his day” holds true as I shared the room with numerous TMS executives, race drivers, and many other members of motorsports journalism.

The main topics of conversation, were of course, the possibility of TMS getting a second NASCAR date, NASCAR’s realignment and the falling of the scoring tower in turn three. Smith cited a conversation with Bill France that several tracks with two dates could be losing one those dates. Two of the tracks mentioned are owned by Smith/SMI. Smith said that he had no intention of adding a second race at the expense of one of his other tracks, but added that Darlington or Rockingham losing one of its dates is long overdue. He also said that renting another tracks date was not an option.

Gossage concurred that TMS has the second biggest crowd, third largest purse and third highest ratings and deserves a second date. Gossage also spoke briefly on the falling of scoring tower. Gossage was in the middle of a phone conversation with Dallas Morning News reporter, Terry Blount, when he looked out and noticed the tower laying on the ground. The tower, at a cost of $250,000 will be rebuilt in time for the NASCAR races at the end of March. In a brief conversation that I had with him about a stand alone dirt modified show. He stated that the chances were slim unless a big name sponsor could be found to cover the expenses of a show of that caliber. But there was the possibility of doing another show in conjunction with Terry Dickerson from Lone Star Spwy. as was held last year.

Radio Shack/Samsung announced its continued sponsorship of the NASCAR Winston Cup race as part of their 3-year contract. This year’s Grand Marshall will again be scheduled for Howie Long, who was forced to miss last year’s ceremonies after the rescheduling of last years race, due to previous commitments.

Bombardier Aerospace will continue its sponsorship of the summer Indy Racing League event as well as this year’s IRL rookie of the year, and its assistance with the Kelly race team.

The Speed Channel presentation followed with Richy Glassberg announcing that in 2003 all the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series races would be televised live with two replays during the following week. The Speed Channel will also televise all the Cup and Busch qualifying, along with 12 World of Outlaws show, including all four from TMS dirt track. As a side note Ted Johnson from The WoO announced that O’Reilly’s Auto Parts would be the title sponsor for the Woo series.

There were interviews with Arie Luyendyk jr. from the Infiniti Pro Series(who’s the spitting image of his father), 2002 Gumout Champ, Tyler Walker from the WoO, Two time IRL champ Sam Hornish jr., Kenny Brack from IRL/CART, past multi-time NASCAR champ, Jeff Gordon and Texas native David Starr from the truck series. I watched Starr cut his teeth in racing while driving a late model at Big H Spwy. (Houston) back the mid 80's, against the likes of Howard Willis and Robbie Starnes.

 

The lunch agenda included a meeting with former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman who spoke about the joint effort with himself, Bill Saunders and another former Dallas Cowboy QB, Roger Staubach. The trio along with Paul Whitman and Mark Grigg are forming a new NASCAR team under the name of Hall of Fame Racing. Aikman stated that they were still putting all the pieces together and were hoping for sponsorship announcement in 60-90 days. The team plans are to be based in the talent rich area of North Carolina and it was yet to be determined whether it will be a team started from scratch or a team purchased from someone else. They are also looking at the possibilities of a multi-car team to help shorten the learning curve, with the extra input from a second team.