MOORESVILLE, N.C. — When it comes to making changes, NASCAR officials aren’t afraid to take big swings, even if they miss now and then.
In an attempt to keep up with changing times, NASCAR continues to reinvent itself. Instead of making precise changes, NASCAR blew up its schedule this season.
Fans wanted more road-course races and NASCAR reacted with a record six road-racing contests, including at iconic facilities such as Road America, Circuit of The Americas and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was originally supposed to be five road courses, but when Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., was unable to host a race because of COVID restrictions, its spot on the schedule was filled with a race on the road course at Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Fans wanted a dirt race on the schedule and NASCAR obliged by dumping truckloads of clay on the short oval at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
Fans wanted a return to Nashville, Tenn., and NASCAR delivered by reviving Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn.
NASCAR also showed that if tracks and markets grow stale, they aren’t afraid to remove events from the schedule. Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., was a motorsports palace when it opened in 2001.
Last year’s Chicagoland Speedway race was canceled because of the pandemic and the 1.5-mile track was left off the 2021 schedule.
NASCAR owns the track today and the stark reality is the property is probably worth more in real estate development value than as a race track.
The Busch Clash, once a showcase for the previous season’s pole winners, is being moved from Daytona Int’l Speedway to the famed Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and will be run with a traditional short-track racing format.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps indicated there are more changes ahead.
“I don’t know what the 2023 schedule is going to look like, but I know it’s not going to look like the 2022 schedule,” Phelps said at Phoenix Raceway in November. “I think the schedule variation is critical for the success of this sport. I think you saw really strong results from schedule variation, whether you’re talking about COTA, you’re talking about Road America, you’re talking about even format changes like Bristol dirt, right, which might as well have been a new venue.
“Ben Kennedy (NASCAR senior vice president of stratey and innovation) and the team put together the most aggressive schedule we’ve had in 50 years. I think it worked. Attendance was fantastic at all the new venues; the racing was good at all the new venues.”
There remain a few problematic venues on the schedule, including events at Texas Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway.
“I think we can all agree that Texas, it wasn’t our best foot forward for the year, which is unfortunate, but it happened,” Phelps said. “Specifically, around Texas, we’re going to work with Speedway Motorsports to determine what’s happening in that marketplace, then what can we do collectively that will help ticket sales in that marketplace. We’ve got a group that we’ve put together that includes Speedway Motorsports folks, it includes people at NASCAR, to address what I would suggest would be an unacceptable level of tickets sold in that marketplace.
“Obviously, the facility is massive. It is a huge facility. So, I think it exacerbated an issue that existed there, which is they did not sell enough tickets.”
Kansas Speedway endured a different challenge.
“As it relates to Kansas, Kansas is a track that NASCAR owns,” Phelps explained. “I thought we were going to see an incredible crowd at Kansas based on the number of tickets that we sold. We sold a lot of tickets. It was above 80 percent of the capacity, which at this particular point I’d take 80 plus at most of the facilities that we have, at least right now. We are trending toward increases.
“Unfortunately, we only scanned 60 percent of the tickets going through the turnstiles. Weather was a challenge that day or supposed to be. I’m frankly surprised we got the race in based on where the forecast was. Obviously, the nice folks in Kansas, Missouri and the Midwest decided not to attend even though they bought a ticket.”
Two events showing impressive growth were the Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and the penultimate playoff race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. Darlington was a sellout and Martinsville had its largest crowd since 2016.
Phelps is engaged in restoring the luster to NASCAR, even if that means making changes.
“As we look to the schedule in 2022, going to the L.A. Coliseum to kick off our debut with our Next Gen car as a proof point, frankly, to we’re going to be bold in what we’re doing, whether it’s the schedule or the car, all of it, we’re going to take calculated risks,” Phelps said. “I think the schedule variation was very important. The reason why we’re able to do schedule variation, frankly, is the two public companies that dominated the Cup schedule, they had responsibilities to their shareholders. Those shareholders wanted to see a return on the investment they were making in those public companies.
“NASCAR merging with International Speedway Corp. and Speedway Motorsports going private were things that people don’t think about that were very, very important to the success of this sport and will be for decades to come.”