Second Cup date for TMS?

[NickHolt]

At a NASCAR news conference in Concord, N.C. on Tuesday, a reporter (Ron Felix) asked Brian France how he would realign the schedule and still give a second date to Texas. All of a sudden up pops Bill France, Jr., who was sitting in the front row, and says, "Let me answer this."

 

Here's what David Poole of The Charlotte Observer (http://www.thatsracin.com/mld/thatsracin/4998953.htm) had to say in Tuesday's edition:

 

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Talk of schedule realignment already sounding like a debate

By DAVID POOLE

The Charlotte Observer

 

NASCAR officials said Tuesday they plan to realign the Winston Cup schedule beginning in 2004, a process that could reduce the number of races run at tracks in the Carolinas each season. NASCAR board chairman Bill France Jr. said Lowe's Motor Speedway outside Charlotte, Darlington Raceway and North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham are among tracks that could see dates shifted to other facilities.....

 

France suggested that Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith could get the second date Smith has long wanted for Texas Motor Speedway by moving a race from Atlanta or by swapping it for one of three Charlotte race weekends -- presumably The Winston, which draws a smaller crowd than May and October points races.

 

"If Dover would like to take one of its races and shift it to St. Louis or Nashville, or if ... Bruton would like to take an Atlanta race and shift it to Texas and sell all of their tickets, we're going to be entertaining that," France said.

 

Tracks at Dover, St. Louis and Nashville are owned by Delaware-based Dover Downs Enterprises.

 

Smith, speaking at a Tuesday night dinner at his Charlotte track, rejected the idea of moving one of SMI's races to his Texas track.

 

"Moving anything to Texas is absolutely not anything we are thinking about," he said.

 

Smith has said he was promised a date for the Texas track to go with the one he got from buying 50 percent interest in a track in North Wilkesboro. An SMI stockholder has sued NASCAR for reneging on that promise, but France denies it was ever made.

 

"If Texas can sell 160,000 seats and Atlanta is selling 80,000, NASCAR certainly might take a look at benefiting 80,000 more fans," Pyne said.

 

Ed Clark, president of SMI's Atlanta Motor Speedway, said the idea of taking a race from his track and moving it to Texas is one he and Smith have heard -- and rejected -- before.

 

"Why should Bruton give up something he's already got to get a date he should already have?" Clark said.

 

Clark said he would welcome a schedule realignment that moves his track's March race from what is often a cold and rainy period to a warmer time of the year. Atlanta's fall race was moved from November to October in 2002, but Helton said the realignment planned for 2004 does not include a wholesale shuffling of positions on the calendar.

 

There has been speculation for years that Darlington and Rockingham might each eventually lose a Cup date. While both are among the tracks with the sport's smallest seating capacities, sellouts have been rare. That's partly because the tracks are within 100 miles of each other and compete to sell tickets for their events.

 

The most likely scenarios for ISC-owned tracks would be for Darlington and Rockingham to each lose a race, with one going to California and the other to Kansas. NASCAR president Mike Helton said no tracks would be abandoned, however, so neither Darlington nor Rockingham would be in danger of losing both of its Cup events.

 

"I wish things wouldn't change," Darlington Raceway president Andrew Gurtis said. "The fact of the matter is they're probably going to. It's my job to sell tickets to Darlington and hope we keep two dates for the next 50 years.

 

"I am also part of ISC. I want my company to do well and I want my sport to grow. What they have laid out here is, I think, a prudent way to grow the sport. I just hope it doesn't come at the expense of Darlington."

 

Pyne said NASCAR also will continue to look to move race starting times later into Sunday afternoons, hoping to maximize the television audience by pushing finishes toward evening hours for viewers in the eastern United States and preventing races from starting too early for viewers out West. That initiative and the possibility of more night races might require some tracks to add lights to keep their places on the Cup schedule.

 

Helton said the 2004 schedule will not expand beyond the current 36 races plus The Winston and the season-opening Bud Shootout at Daytona. He said tracks that don't have dates, like Kentucky and Nashville, would factor into the realignment only through potential deals with track owners currently on the schedule.

 

"This is about taking the current schedule and making it more efficient, not adding new players into it," Helton said. "If a current schedule member wants to add a new player in it, that's something we want to be more open-minded about."

 

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[NickHolt]

And here's what John Stubbin of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/motorspo...rts/5003584.htm) had to say about it in today's (Wednesday) edition:

 

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Smith won't alter dates for TMS

By John Sturbin

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

 

CONCORD, N.C. - Denying it was a veiled threat, NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. suggested that motorsports mogul O. Bruton Smith could satisfy his desire for a second Winston Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway by moving one of two dates from either his Atlanta Motor Speedway or Lowe's Motor Speedway to Fort Worth.

 

France lumped AMS and the Lowe's facility here with the famed Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, N.C., as "candidates" for an aggressive realignment plan NASCAR officials will use to shape the 2004 Winston Cup schedule.

 

"It's not a threat [to Smith] at all," France said after an elaborate presentation at NASCAR's new Research and Development Center on Tuesday afternoon. "Haven't said that all day today. Not saying it now. We like the view that we're going to do this in concert with them [smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc.] And it's going to make financial sense for them to do that. If they don't want to do it, they don't have to do it. At the same time, we've got to grow the sport."

 

But Smith, the chairman and CEO of SMI, and Lowe's president H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, rejected the notion of shifting Cup races from the sister 1.5-mile AMS and LMS facilities. "Moving anything to Texas is absolutely not anything we're thinking about," Smith said during his annual "Tireside Chat" that capped Day Two of the UAW/GM Motorsports Media Tour at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "That's probably the worst philosophy I've heard in years."

 

Earlier in the day, NASCAR president Mike Helton and the sanctioning body's management team presented the option of moving dates in 2004 while showing off the new Research and Development Center. The Cup schedule is comprised of 36 points-paying races and two special events over a 41-week period. All but seven races on the 2003 Winston Cup schedule are at tracks east of Birmingham, Ala.

 

"We're going to be more proactive this year than any other time in our history in meeting with the track operators and discussing how we can continue to grow the sport," said George Pyne, NASCAR's senior vice president and chief operating officer. "What does that mean?

 

"It means we're going to look at the geographic distribution of events. And even though we believe at this time that the schedule cannot expand beyond the 38 races -- that we're either at the end or near the end -- for 2004 we believe the schedule cannot expand. We need to look within the schedule to see whether or not there are any moves that make sense to again better realign the schedule, have a better geographic representation nationally and to bring the sport to more fans across America."

 

France, a son of NASCAR founder Bill France, rose from his seat in the audience to spell it out further.

 

"I'll give you four tracks right now that would be good candidates -- Atlanta [Motor Speedway] for their last race; a race here in Charlotte; Darlington, Rockingham," France Jr. said. "This [option] is going to be available to every track operator.

 

"Dover [Del.], we'd like to take one of their races and shift it to St. Louis or Nashville. Or if Humpy and Bruton would like to take an Atlanta race and shift it to Texas, where they can sell all their tickets -- from what I read -- we're going to be entertaining that. I think I'm putting that clear up there. We're calling this 'Realignment 2004 and Beyond.' That's a key word you're going to hear more about as the year goes along."

 

Included in the realignment plan is the likelihood of more prime-time TV races, including Saturdays, and starting times moved back from 11 a.m. (Central time) to 2 p.m. to draw better ratings on the West Coast.

 

The Darlington and North Carolina facilities are owned by International Speedway Corp., which along with NASCAR is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by Plano resident Francis Ferko. An SMI stockholder, Ferko's suit alleges that NASCAR is in breach of contract for failing to deliver a "promised" second Cup date to TMS.

 

Brian France, Bill France's son and NASCAR's vice chairman, denied the "realignment" proposal was a means to settle the suit before it goes to trial.

 

"It [the lawsuit] didn't weigh in the decision," Brian France said, "because we have so many other concerns that we don't model our schedule on litigation."

 

Speculation is that when the schedule is realigned in 2004, ISC's tracks in Darlington and Rockingham will surrender one of their two dates to the California Speedway in Fontana, Calif., and Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan. -- successful markets with one Cup date that NASCAR has added since 1998.

 

TMS easily has sold out each of its six Cup races beginning in 1997.

 

"If Texas can sell 160,000 seats, [and] Atlanta is selling 80,000 seats in the spring -- would NASCAR take a look at reaching 80,000 more fans?" Pyne said. "If it benefitted SMI, one of our best customers, then we certainly might take a look at that."

 

That line of reasoning failed to register with Smith.

 

"If I'm sitting up here looking stupid, I apologize," Smith said. "Does that answer your question? I sit here thinking we already should have had that [second Texas] date."

 

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