LINCOLN, Calif. — It took the influence of Major League Baseball to make it happen, but on April 1 the landscape for racing in California will take a big turn for the better.
Tracks that haven’t had fans in the stands since the end of the 2019 season will have a chance to break that drought once April arrives.
According to Governor Gavin Newsom, he worked “very closely” with MLB teams in the state to create a plan to allow fans starting April 1, which happens to be the day the season starts with three of the five California teams playing home games.
The new regulation will apply to “outdoor spectator sports,” which should include race tracks. The number of fans will be determined by the county’s tier, which is based on COVID-19 trends within the particular county. The four levels of tiers will allow just 100 fans at the worst level, then increasing to 20 percent, 33 percent and 67 percent capacity for tiers with increasingly improved statistics.
Other limitations regarding concessions and geographical location of fans are eased as the allowed fan count increases.
In 2020, just two tracks in the state were able to have fans for part of their season, and one of those tracks was allowed just 100 spectators after the local college summer league baseball team received that same offer. Several tracks never had a race car on their oval all season.
Will counties play along with the MLB regulations for other outdoor spectator sports? Late last year the San Francisco 49ers NFL team was given permission to have a few thousand fans for home games. Their stadium is in Santa Clara County and county officials told the team that the procedures on how to implement the fan count were not in place and overruled the option, so the 49ers packed up and played their last two home games in Phoenix.
Placerville Speedway promoters Scott Russell and Kami Arnold have faced the same issues as every California promoter, and can finally see better times on the horizon.
“My personal feelings going forward is the vaccines are rolling out, and looking at the oversight of everything, it looks like things are finally trending in the right direction,” Russell said. “Come April 1st with what the state has announced, our goal here is to try and run on a weekly basis. If the track can pay for itself again until we get back to full stands, then I can keep the speedway going so people don’t forget about us.
“We need to keep the track out there in front of people and fresh in their minds and, hopefully, they will come and support the speedway if they are comfortable in doing so with the COVID-19 guidelines,” Russell continued. “I don’t have much concern about being considered an outdoor spectator sport based on the conversations I’ve had with county officials.
“When this started, we were only allowing six people per race car and you had to show up with the car. With fans in the stands my rent will go up substantially each night so I’m not sure the math will work out even with 20 percent. There will be more payroll on the spectator side and I still want to run a regular purse. There is a fine line between this paying for itself or not until we can get more people.
“Placerville has always had great support from the racers, no matter what division it is and also great support from the fans,” Russell added. “That’s why things have worked here and it has lasted so long. You try to do this without fans and it’s a whole different ball game.”
While there is a long way to go in California for race tracks as well as other small businesses, the April 1 changes will at least be a move in a positive direction. Continued success in counties at shrinking the COVID-19 case count must continue to avoid going backward.