The Pitfalls Of A Second Date At Las Vegas
Thursday, February 28th, 2008 2:20pm CST
By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
If you’re new around here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
With every advancement in dates for a NASCAR track, someone loses out. Las Vegas hosting two races per season would not be an exception to this. In order for the folks at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to benefit from a second date, someone will lose out. More than just one “someone” as well.
As it stands now, that potential loss lies at the feet of SMI’s recently purchased New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which is unfortunate.
New Hampshire Motor Speedway typically sells out both of their dates, and Bruton Smith has already acknowledged he plans to make many improvements to the speedway to bring it up to speed with his other properties. More seats, suites, and other treats lie in the very near future of NHMS. For a comparison, simply look to any of his other tracks under the SMI banner and you will see what they all have in common. New Hampshire Motor Speedway will be no different, and have all the amenities fans have come to expect and look forward to at SMI’s other facilities.
However, what is still unknown at this time is what will happen to the dates now in retention by New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Bruton Smith had held his checkbook out as bait to independent track owners for the past couple of years, New Hampshire Motor Speedway was finally the one to bite.
The whole purpose of that was admittedly to get another date for Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Bruton Smith and SMI want that track to have two dates. We’ll stick with the assumption at this time that this is the reason New Hampshire Motor Speedway was purchased.
So what we now have here is a sticky situation. You have a new track in your inventory, it has two Cup dates, and one of those Cup dates just happens to be in the Chase as well.
The situation couldn’t look better for SMI, or worse for the true losers in this deal. The fans attending New Hampshire Motor Speedway are the ones who lose out if one of the dates is sacrificed to the Vegas track.
The track doesn’t lose much overall, as the money still ends up at SMI. In fact they will probably gain more overall by the move. The track is also going to get some needed improvements and investments as well, which at least would make it better for the remaining race.
I would say that the other loser here would be the product, the racing. That would very well have been correct prior to the repaving and reconstruction job at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Now it is more of a trade of one good product for another. Mainly 1 mile of speedway for 1.5 miles. The difference there is that New Hampshire Motor Speedway is still small enough that the beating and banging goes on, yet it’s not quite a short track. It also has some speed in the track as well, giving fans a little taste of a bigger facility.
SMI is in a bit of a pickle here, but the result is they are in a win-win situation in terms of business operations.
They have a new track in their portfolio that sells out their dates. If they simply improve the facilities to bring them on par with their other tracks, the business wins.
On the other hand, if they improve the facilities (which they will either way) but still move one date to Las Vegas, the company still wins in that one too. At least they should.
What is unclear is how the fans in the area will react to the move if one date is lost. Will they in turn protest by skipping the remaining date? It’s one possibility that can’t be ruled out. Then again, for many fans that’s the closest they can get to the best, most popular form of racing in the country. And they do love their racing up there.
What could be done, in my opinion, to perhaps appease those fans is to at least give them a little more product in their remaining race. Scrap the 300, make it a 400 and give them another 100 miles of racing. That is something well within the tracks options, just look at Bristol and the extra 50 laps they added to the Sharpie-mini 300 last year. Apparently it was promotional, as they now list it again as a 300 lap event, but that is something that the tracks have a say in.
While it would not make up for the loss of a date, at least they would in turn have a little more bang for their buck. As creative as Eddie and the folks at SMI are, I’m sure it’s something they may take under consideration. Even if they hadn’t previously thought of it until now, it’s something that could be passed on to the big man himself. Although Bruton is probably laughing at us by now, here’s a “Boomer” just for you, and we’ll see you folks in a few weeks.
Back on track, there’s always someone on the short end of the stick when things like this happen. It’s inevitable.
From a business perspective, SMI is in a real good position. From a fan/ticket purchaser standpoint at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, not so much.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned in the press though, is what the potential dates could look like.
SMI now controls 4 dates in the Chase. Those dates are currently New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, and Texas Motor Speedway.
It’s no secret that the November race at Texas is less attended than the Spring race. Granted it’s still very well packed, but slightly less than in the Spring. Why? Well, that weekend coincides with the opening of deer season, for starters, and that makes a tough choice for a lot of fans.
With that in mind, SMI has some room to play around a bit. More so now than they had.
One consideration would be taking the New Hampshire date, replacing it with Texas, and holding Las Vegas in place of Texas in November. That would give a big, Texas-sized kickoff to the Chase.
Another consideration would be to instead swap Texas and Atlanta, and let a party kick off the Chase in a way that only Las Vegas can.
The only problem I would see with either of those would be that it would potentially be pretty darn hot in either place during the middle of September. Not Souther 500 type of heat, but still mighty toasty. Then again, that could be said for most places at that time that are much south of I-70, and sometimes anywhere in the States. Although the farther North you are, the better the chance it won’t be 100° out.
While I’m drifting from my point that while it’s a good idea for Las Vegas Motor Speedway to have a second date, but we must not neglect the downside to that potential, one thing is certain in the fact that the Chase as we know it this season could easily take on a completely new face for 2009. There are many possibilities there with SMI now controlling 4 of the 10 dates. Not that this is a bad thing, but it certainly will be interesting to see play out.
What we don’t know, we don’t know. Right now we don’t know if one date will be moved to Las Vegas or not, whether or not it will come from New Hampshire as attendance in Atlanta isn’t too hot (but the racing is), and we don’t know whether or not Texas would be moved to help accommodate the fans there as well.
As with any situation like this, which we haven’t had since Rockingham was sold (ironically, to SMI), there are a lot of unknown factors and many possible outcomes.
However, one thing for sure is that the fans in New Hampshire have the most at stake here.
Filed Under: Las Vegas, Nascar, New Hampshire, Sprint Cup, Texas, Tracks
Tagged As: Bruton Smith, Las Vegas, New Hampshire, SMI, Texas
Trackback URL for: The Pitfalls Of A Second Date At Las Vegas
Loading...
Great post Luke. With New Hampshire being the closest thing to a Boston/New York City area track that NASCAR currently has, I doubt that either of those dates will be pulled. I do think that Vegas deserves and will get a second date, but maybe not at the expense of the easterners.
Well, I hope not.
Right now, Bruton is saying the same thing as well.
I wouldn’t cry if Pocono was cut back to one date though, or if they don’t fix Fontana. Very unlikely though.
I just have a feeling something is up the sleeve though. Especially after some cryptic comments today from Vegas.