Nashville Superspeedway Revisited
It’s virtually impossible for any new
racing facility to score a perfect ‘10’ on its inaugural weekend considering
the enormity of details to be addressed leading up to the dropping of the green
flag! But, Dover Downs Entertainment CEO, Denis McGlynn, was very pleased with
the final outcome at the new Nashville Superspeedway this past April.
Dover Downs, located in Dover, Delaware,
is the parent company and owner of the Nashville Superspeedway as well as other
racing complexes around the country including the famed "Monster Mile"
concrete track in Delaware. Dover Downs will host the NASCAR Winston Cup, Busch
Grand National, and Craftsman Truck Series at their home base the weekend of
June 1-3 with approximately 150,000 racing fans converging on their little city!
McGlynn was the guest speaker at the local
Chamber of Commerce luncheon and gave his assessment on a variety of positive
and negative issues surrounding the newly completed 1.3 mile concrete
state-of-the-art facility located in the rural countryside of Middle Tennessee.
Various points of interest addressed by
McGlynn included the following:
OPENING WEEKEND:
"For 3 ½ years we’ve been talking about the Nashville Superspeedway and
what a great project it would become and how the construction was coming along,
so it seems a little weird to stand here today telling you how I feel the
opening went. Looking back, it sure seems like a very short 3 ½ years and
wondering where the time went!"
"The good news, it went very well!
Most all our goals were met and the facility was substantially completed for
opening day. There were some last minute stuff that wasn’t finished, but the
important things were done. We would have like to have seen more green grass in
the tri-oval area, but that’s a Mother Nature thing and I didn’t see the
justification of spending an extra $100,000 dollars to lay sod, so we opted to
let Mother Nature take its course."
"All the folks we wanted to impress
were impressed! The NASCAR folks, who happen to be very important in all our
lives in racing, came here and liked what they saw. Bill France, the Chairman of
NASCAR and Mike Helton, President of NASCAR had nothing but high praise for the
facility and the infrastructure around it. The guys who raced on it were well
pleased with the exception of the Turn 2 problems; otherwise they loved it as
well! We put a lot of extra amenities into the project for the drivers and their
families because we want them to love it enough to tell the other drivers in Cup
in hopes they too will want to come here and race in the near future!"
SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY:
"I appreciate all the Tennessee folks "countrifying" my wife,
Louise, and me on the slang down here in the South considering I’m a native
New Yorker. Back East I’ve told my neighbors I plan to get a meat smoker
because it’s a way of life and they’ll love it! It’s been a great and fun
cultural exchange. It’s such a pleasure to be here in Middle Tennessee and so
grateful for the community effort. We had over 600 members of the community
helping us out and they offered the incoming fans a friendly face and southern
hospitality. In this neck of the woods, the people are just naturally friendly,
so that was a great thing to see with the fans coming in from all over the
country."
"The sponsors that follow the circuit
told us they loved the new track, as did the media! The media did a great job in
showcasing the Nashville Superspeedway and in many ways showed the nation what a
great area it is here in Wilson County, Tennessee. The out-of-town guests we
invited were impressed and talked repeatedly to us about the hospitality they
received upon arriving here and I’m very grateful to all the Tennesseans for
that!"
FOX-TV/FX CHANNEL: "We
think FOX-TV did a great job with the telecast and the live feed reached over
1.2 million people and that number will grow as FX grows. In the short time that
FX has been televising NASCAR races, the subscriber base has grown from 60
million to 65 million and that’s within approximately 15 million of ESPN and
TNN. By next year, FX will be virtually everywhere across the nation and viewer
ship will rise and benefit all of us."
CROWD SIZE:
"No doubt we would have liked to have seen a larger crowd in attendance for
the inaugural Pepsi 400 Busch race, but we still had the grandstands 65% filled.
We did a post-race telephone survey from our database of previous Busch ticket
holders from the old Nashville Speedway to find out the reason they did not
attend at the new track. The primary answer we received was the fact the race
was held on Easter weekend and they had prior commitments to family and family
outings. We thought we could overcome the holiday weekend date and did not
realize it would become the issue it did. So, before NASCAR sets the 2002 season
schedule, we’ll try to meet with them to see whether there’s any flexibility
to give us a different date."
TRAFFIC:
"We definitely learned a lot during the inaugural weekend! A lot of effort
was put into getting the proper infrastructure in and around the track and we
had four major track access routes, but unfortunately most fans all decided to
use one route. Our job is to better educate the public on the variety of ways to
approach the Nashville Superspeedway in the future. We’ve worked very hard
with the local people regarding traffic management and it will be greatly
improved by the next race in July."
NEW SPEEDWAY STAFF:
"The staff, including all the volunteers, at the brand new facility did a
great job and many of them did not have a lot of motorsports background.
Everything from the pre-race publicity to race weekend preparation to post-race
cleanup was handled very professionally and we’re proud of all their
efforts."
TURN TWO: "The
situation in our Turn 2 probably generated the most media attention and it was
an interesting development we just didn’t foresee. When we put down the
concrete speedway, the last thing done to the completed track was to put a very
light hand-grinding machine to its surface to take the sharp edges off. The
first crew out there went out with a diamond tip-grinding blade and it took
30-40 feet for them to realize the surface was too smooth, so they switched to a
different blade to do the rest of the track. The one small area was still there
and we all took a look at it, though it did look very smooth we figured it would
not become a problem. We just decided to wait for the tire testing folks to come
in to see if it was a real problem. The Goodyear and Hoosier tire tests were
conducted a couple of weeks prior to the races and never said a word about the
area in Turn 2, so again we had no reason to think it was a problem to worry
about."
"The problem really surfaced when the
actual race teams came here and brought a totally different tire compound than
the test sessions brought. The tire compound measures the degrees of hardness or
softness and the teams brought the very hard compound therefore they did not
have the grip needed and it was the first time any of the teams had been here
before as well."
"Race teams have a race set-up plan
book comparable to another sporting team having a game-day plan book. History at
a particular track, tire pressure, degree of stiffness of the spring and shock
absorbers, and a multitude of combination race strategies are put into play.
But, these teams were racing here for the first time with no history and were
all trying to find their set-up and dealing with the tire situation. The rain
washed out what little rubber had been laid down during practice, therefore the
cars could get little grip in Turn 2 and they were wrecking."
"We recently had the crew from
Houston in here to scoff up all the slick surfaces and the USAC just recently
set a speed record at the new track without skidding, so that indicates to me
that the Turn 2 problems are behind us."
FUTURE 2001 RACES:
"We are pleased to announce the Indy Racing Northern Lights Series will be
coming to the new Nashville Superspeedway for the first ever night race here. If
you think the cars NASCAR brought to town recently went fast, just wait until
the IRL cars come, they will astound you!"
The remaining Nashville Superspeedway 2001
schedule includes:
July 19-21 Indy Northern Lights
Series/Coors Light Silver Bullet SeriesAugust 9-11 Federated Auto Parts
250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series/ARCA RE/MAXNovember 23-25 The Thanksgiving
Classic featuring the NASCAR All-Pro Series/NASCAR Goody’s Dash Series
Tickets to all events may be purchased by
calling 1-866-RACE-TIX, visiting the web site at www.nashvillesuperspeedway.com,
or stopping by the ticket office at the new facility.