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Traditonal race changes location|
|By MIKE HARRIS|
|AP Motorsports Writer|
BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) — The Southern 500, NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway race, is moving, making way for a second Winston Cup race at California Speedway.
NASCAR made it official Friday at Michigan International Speedway: The traditional Labor Day weekend event in Darlington, S.C., will instead be run in November, the week before the season finale in Homestead, Fla., beginning in 2004.
The California track, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest media market, will take the holiday weekend for its new Pop Secret 500.
That race will start at 5 p.m. local time, making it a prime-time show for NBC, which will televise the event live.
To keep the schedule at 36 races, NASCAR took away North Carolina Speedway’s fall date and gave it to the Darlington track in what NASCAR president Mike Helton called ‘‘the first phase of Realignment 2004 and beyond.’’
‘‘It’s the best move using the current number of weekends in an efficient manner,’’ Helton said.
The idea is to shift races away from tracks with fewer seats in smaller and overcrowded markets to bigger tracks in larger markets without increasing the already jammed Winston Cup schedule.
‘‘Some facilities, particularly in the Carolinas, we’ve had empty seats,’’ said John Saunders, executive vice president of International Speedway Corp., which owns all the tracks involved. ‘‘The bigger tracks in bigger markets have been selling out and they’ve been underserved.’’
Darlington and North Carolina Speedway, located in Rockingham, N.C., both have a capacity of just over 60,000 and have not sold out in years. California Speedway, which seats 92,000 and can put thousands more in the infield, has sold all of its seats for Winston Cup races since it opened in 1997.
‘‘I feel for our race fans, the folks who buy tickets, and I also want to be a good community citizen,’’ said Darlington president Andrew Gurtis. ‘‘But the truth of the matter is twice a year the NASCAR world is going to descend on Darlington Raceway.’’
Darlington will continue to run two races through 2004, but Helton said nothing is guaranteed beyond that.
‘‘As I’ve said many times, we do these schedules one year at a time,’’ Helton said. ‘‘We’re still putting the 2004 schedule together and we’re talking to all the promoters about potential realignment. This is all we’re talking about today.’’
The Southern 500 first ran on Labor Day in 1950. It was later moved to Sunday, giving NASCAR a rain date. Other than the Daytona 500, it was considered the biggest race of the year in stock car racing.
‘‘There is no universal decision we’re going to make that will please everybody,’’ Helton said. ‘‘That goes back to our beginning.
‘‘It’s not a matter of abandoning tradition or small markets. We still have a lot of racing at those places.’’
Ron Munnerlyn, Richmond County’s economic development director, said stripping Rockingham of its second annual race, is a bottom-line decision.
‘‘People are kind of hurt by it,’’ Munnerlyn said. ‘‘We feel the working class people of Rockingham helped build NASCAR and its success.
‘‘Maybe they’ve outgrown us, and left us behind. But these same people have been dealing with layoffs and plant closings.’’
ISC is run by the family of NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr., and controlled by the stock car sanctioning body.
In January, France, the son of NASCAR’s founder, targeted Darlington, Rockingham, Atlanta Motor Speedway and Lowe’s Motor Speedway as tracks that might lose one of their two races a year.
Atlanta and Lowe’s, in Concord, N.C., are owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which is run by France rival Bruton Smith. Smith has made it clear he has no intention of moving races from those two tracks, even though he has campaigned vigorously for second events at his Texas Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Smith has said there is ‘zero chance,’’ he will shift SMI events between tracks.
|By MIKE HARRIS|
|AP Motorsports Writer|
BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) — The Southern 500, NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway race, is moving, making way for a second Winston Cup race at California Speedway.
NASCAR made it official Friday at Michigan International Speedway: The traditional Labor Day weekend event in Darlington, S.C., will instead be run in November, the week before the season finale in Homestead, Fla., beginning in 2004.
The California track, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest media market, will take the holiday weekend for its new Pop Secret 500.
That race will start at 5 p.m. local time, making it a prime-time show for NBC, which will televise the event live.
To keep the schedule at 36 races, NASCAR took away North Carolina Speedway’s fall date and gave it to the Darlington track in what NASCAR president Mike Helton called ‘‘the first phase of Realignment 2004 and beyond.’’
‘‘It’s the best move using the current number of weekends in an efficient manner,’’ Helton said.
The idea is to shift races away from tracks with fewer seats in smaller and overcrowded markets to bigger tracks in larger markets without increasing the already jammed Winston Cup schedule.
‘‘Some facilities, particularly in the Carolinas, we’ve had empty seats,’’ said John Saunders, executive vice president of International Speedway Corp., which owns all the tracks involved. ‘‘The bigger tracks in bigger markets have been selling out and they’ve been underserved.’’
Darlington and North Carolina Speedway, located in Rockingham, N.C., both have a capacity of just over 60,000 and have not sold out in years. California Speedway, which seats 92,000 and can put thousands more in the infield, has sold all of its seats for Winston Cup races since it opened in 1997.
‘‘I feel for our race fans, the folks who buy tickets, and I also want to be a good community citizen,’’ said Darlington president Andrew Gurtis. ‘‘But the truth of the matter is twice a year the NASCAR world is going to descend on Darlington Raceway.’’
Darlington will continue to run two races through 2004, but Helton said nothing is guaranteed beyond that.
‘‘As I’ve said many times, we do these schedules one year at a time,’’ Helton said. ‘‘We’re still putting the 2004 schedule together and we’re talking to all the promoters about potential realignment. This is all we’re talking about today.’’
The Southern 500 first ran on Labor Day in 1950. It was later moved to Sunday, giving NASCAR a rain date. Other than the Daytona 500, it was considered the biggest race of the year in stock car racing.
‘‘There is no universal decision we’re going to make that will please everybody,’’ Helton said. ‘‘That goes back to our beginning.
‘‘It’s not a matter of abandoning tradition or small markets. We still have a lot of racing at those places.’’
Ron Munnerlyn, Richmond County’s economic development director, said stripping Rockingham of its second annual race, is a bottom-line decision.
‘‘People are kind of hurt by it,’’ Munnerlyn said. ‘‘We feel the working class people of Rockingham helped build NASCAR and its success.
‘‘Maybe they’ve outgrown us, and left us behind. But these same people have been dealing with layoffs and plant closings.’’
ISC is run by the family of NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr., and controlled by the stock car sanctioning body.
In January, France, the son of NASCAR’s founder, targeted Darlington, Rockingham, Atlanta Motor Speedway and Lowe’s Motor Speedway as tracks that might lose one of their two races a year.
Atlanta and Lowe’s, in Concord, N.C., are owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc., which is run by France rival Bruton Smith. Smith has made it clear he has no intention of moving races from those two tracks, even though he has campaigned vigorously for second events at his Texas Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Smith has said there is ‘zero chance,’’ he will shift SMI events between tracks.
