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Economy, Ticket Prices Hurt Atlanta Attendance

An Opinion



March 12, 2009

By Doug Demmons


Doug Demmons
Last Sunday’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway was billed as a test of sorts -- a test for the race fans of Atlanta.

The track, which hosted its 100th Cup race on Sunday, has been on a short list of late -- a list of underperforming tracks from which a race date might be harvested.

The list includes Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., and Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Fontana has had trouble filling the stands for years. Martinsville is a great track that fills its seats, but it only has 65,000 to fill. Plus, it’s not exactly in a prime TV market.

Atlanta’s problem has been weak attendance, which has always been blamed on the nasty March weather that sees its spring date plagued by rain or cold or sleet.

But last week the forecast was for abundant sunshine. With the exception of a heavy fog Saturday morning that burned off by lunch, the weather was straight out of a Caribbean cruise catalog.

In other words, Atlanta Motor Speedway had no excuse not to sell out. Except, of course, that they had the same problem that every other track has this year -- an economy on the skids, workers out of jobs, corporations slashing expenses and consumers cutting back on everything, including race tickets.

By the time driver introductions began the empty seats stood out as starkly as the unsponsored trucks that competed the day before. The grandstands in front of the start-finish line weren’t even half full.

It would be easy to jump to the conclusion that thousands of empty seats on a beautiful spring day meant that the people of Atlanta just don’t care about racing like they once did. And that would be wrong, because there was something else going on, something that Jeff Gordon noticed and talked about after the race.

“I'm not sure what the deal was with the Turn 3 grandstands, but they were full,” Gordon said. “Those were full. These (the frontstretch) were not. I don't know if those were less expensive, if those were sponsors that gave them away. That was slammed over there.”

The Turn 3 grandstands were indeed packed. And that’s because Atlanta, like many other tracks, has been aggressively discounting tickets. The track even sold some tickets the day after the Daytona 500 for $17 in honor of race winner Matt Kenseth’s No. 17 car. That block of seats sold out in 15 minutes.

People bought tickets. They just didn’t buy the premium seats, the ones in the frontstretch by the start-finish line, and they didn’t buy suites. Those are the seats that are most often scooped up by corporate sponsors -- and Atlanta is eaten up with corporate headquarters -- who use such events to reward clients or for business-to-business contact opportunities.

Those are the tickets that have become the hardest to sell as companies buy fewer and fewer. Even DuPont, a longtime major sponsor, is cutting back on its track presence this year.

Offering free hot dogs and pit passes won’t bring back the corporate presence. Only a healthy economy will do that.

By the measure that’s important -- loyalty of race fans -- Atlanta Motor Speedway passed its test on Sunday. Fans demonstrated they will turn out with good weather and reasonable prices.

There should be no more talk about moving a race date from Atlanta. NASCAR doesn’t need to move another race from another traditional track to another city it is trying to woo.

Of course, Bruton Smith might not have any other choice but to harvest one of Atlanta’s dates if he ever expects to get a Cup race at Kentucky Speedway or a second date at Las Vegas. He won’t get one of Fontana’s dates because that’s an ISC track. So is Martinsville. He’ll have to get one from one of his own.

From the way Smith was talking last weekend at Atlanta he sure didn’t sound like a man thinking of taking a date away from Atlanta. Smith thinks having the season end at Homestead is ridiculous. He kept calling the south Florida track “Home Instead” and talked about how the season should end in Atlanta like it used to, or in Las Vegas.

Nonetheless, Smith might have to choose between his tracks. If that happens, it would be yet another disservice to the fan base in the Southeast that made NASCAR what it is.

So here’s a suggestion. Smith’s SMI stages the All-Star race in Charlotte at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Give that race to ISC and hold the All-Star race at Daytona in July. ISC can then give Smith that fall date at Fontana, which he can use for a second Las Vegas race.




Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes daily and weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at Blog of Tommorow


You can contact Doug Demmons at .... Birmingham News

You Can Read Other Articles By Doug Demmons


The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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