By Deb Williams
When Lowe's Motor Speedway and Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority officials announced an economic relief plan for race fans interested in attending the Oct. 11 Bank of America 500, it was a step in the right direction. However, more needs to be done for future events if the sport expects to gain new fans while maintaining its current following.
If you haven't heard about the plan, here is an overview.
-- Thirty-five hotels located within approximately 30 miles of LMS have agreed to reduce their nightly race week room rates by 15 percent and waive their minimum stay requirements.
-- In conjunction with Circle K and Coca-Cola, the speedway has introduced the Circle K Family Four-Pack for $159. This package includes four reserved Diamond Tower seats for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race, four hot dogs and four 20-ounce Coca-Colas. LMS officials said the $159 package was a 30 percent savings if the same tickets and concession items were purchased separately.
Each person purchasing the Family Four-Pack also will receive a coupon for a free 12-pack of Coke Zero that may be redeemed at a participating Circle K store.
-- A special souvenir package featuring a Lowe's Motor Speedway T-shirt and hat that would normally sell for $48 may be purchased for $20.
-- The concession stands will offer four new combination packages that officials said reflected a 10 to 25 percent savings.
Parking on speedway property remains free and 14-inch coolers may be carried into the grandstands.
The agreement with the 35 hotels is an unprecedented move for a NASCAR race market and it's long overdue. Granted, it would be nice if the 15 percent discount was on the regular room rates and not those established for a race week, but the biggest benefit is eliminating the minimum stay. The minimum stays required by hotels, especially in Daytona Beach, Fla., during February Speedweeks, had gotten ridiculous. It's not uncommon for hotels to more than double their rates during a race week, and then to require a minimum stay is an atrocity. Let's just say that $200 or more a night for a room that normally rents for $60 to $75 is 21st Century highway robbery.
Stock car racing's foundation has always been the working person. It was the mill employee, the blue collar worker who supported the sport when the pillars of the community turned up their noses at it. With the tremendous loss of manufacturing jobs in this country and the growing unemployment, NASCAR's strong foundation has begun to crumble.
Last year, I wrote a story about affordable tickets for Cup races for “Dick Berggren's Speedway Illustrated” and I interviewed H.A.
“Humpy” Wheeler, then LMS' president and general manager, for the article. He made an interesting point. He attributed stock car racing's success to the working person. Wheeler then noted that one of the major problems in NASCAR today was it had grown so fast that numerous people had to be added and many of them didn't understand the “common working person.”
“They've led a cloistered life as a child, they've gone to college, and they've never had to work beside these people,” Wheeler added. “There are people in this sport that say everybody who is coming now is a doctor, lawyer, or whatever, and that is nuts because all you have to do is watch them walk in.”
Lending credence to Wheeler's remarks was the excitement many people expressed when TV ratings improved this year. Did they not look at the grandstands? TV ratings improved because people couldn't afford to go to the events. They couldn't afford the gas, ticket and exorbitant hotel prices with the minimum stay requirements.
The average working person can no longer afford to purchase race tickets a year in advance, and with NASCAR venturing into numerous metroplexes during the last decade, it's in a major battle for the entertainment dollar. After all, a family of four can go to some festivals for the price of one race ticket, and, in some cases, the decision to attend doesn't have to be made until the day of the event.
LMS has taken a step in the right direction, but more facilities need to follow and these initiatives don't need to disappear when the economy turns upward. About seven years ago I remarked to a now retired NASCAR driver that if the sanctioning body wasn't careful, it was going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. His response was they had already killed the goose and they were trying to keep it alive with the egg.
With the economic downturn, corporate mergers, and American companies being acquired by foreign investors, that golden egg had started to crack. With the price reduction packages announced by LMS, it appears at least one track has located an incubator for it. Hopefully, other facilities will realize they, too, need to contribute to its survival.