NASCAR: So Jerry Carroll Is “Livid,” Huh?

NASCAR’s decision Friday to not have a Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Speedway in 2009, despite a change in ownership to Bruton Smith, has left the track’s founder livid.

“This is what bullies do and it’s been going on too long,” Carroll said. “They’ve showed their hand again. If they want to break us and want to run us out of business, get more creative.”

Well D’OH! Just what did this dim bulb expect?

That NASCAR would suddenly change direction because O. Bruton Smith has entered the Kentucky picture. Sorry Carroll, setting aside for a moment Smith is ISC’s chief rival when it comes to track ownership. 

There is a little matter that has been the problem since you and your team of “financial experts” sunk $150 million large into Sparta’s economy.

It’s called market saturation.

With Bristol, Michigan, Indianapolis, and Chicagoland all within easy drive time of each other, the market is flooded and the sales dept of all concerned would do nothing but poach each other’s potential customers.

The winner winds up with a full house that generates less revenue because of lower ticket prices and other enticements.

The loser, well gee, let me think. The loser in this potential game has a less than full house and loses more cash than the others playing it.

Toss in the current price of gas that isn’t going down anytime soon despite what the nutcakes on Capital Hill attempt to do about it.  There’s serious potential for all tracks to lose buckets of cash.

According to the AP report, Carroll is playing the sympathy card by suggesting ticket sales have gone “through the roof” since the Smith sale was announced. If true, that only shows common sense isn’t common.

It’s also a reason to raise the BS flag on Carroll.  How do you sell tickets for an event that doesn’t exist? What does the ticket stub say, “At a date to be determined?”

It’s not unlike Carroll to make pie-in-the-sky pronouncements.

The entire Sparta project was hatched on a hope and a dream and when it didn’t come to fruition he ran to the courts to file a phony unwinable anti-trust suit that has lost at every turn with the exception of a venue change request by ISC.

For the foreseeable future, Kentucky will be out in the cold.  Smith isn’t going to abandon the northeast market and move a New Hampshire date it makes little marketing sense for SMI or NASCAR.

Winds of change are in the air.  There’s talk this week of Atlanta, Fontana, and Talladega making a swap of dates for 2009 but Kentucky?

Forget about it.  If Smith moves any date, it will land at his showplace of the west Las Vegas, not Kentucky!

Before I wrap this up, let me toss this spanner in the works.

Added to the Kentucky, Michigan, Bristol, and Indianapolis mix is the Dale Earnhardt Jr. “signature” track Alabama Motorsports Park located near Mobile, Alabama.

What happens when that track comes online?

Although plans call for a 2.6 mile road course, the important feature and the reason Junior’s name is on it (and Kelley, Kerry, and Dale Jr’s. cash) is the 7/10th’s mile oval that will sport the hot ticket in track design at the moment, progressive banking.

To say nothing of planned space for 100 haulers.

Other than the sports car series’ and NASCAR no one needs that much space for car haulers and makes it pretty clear where developers Gulf Coast Entertainment (GCE) have their eyes set on.

Lets face it, setting aside the Kentucky fans that would support a Cup event there. 

Who among NASCAR Nation’s fan base wants or needs another one-and one-half mile track on the Cup schedule?

I suspect not many.

It would set-up an interesting conundrum if and when GCE and trading on the Earnhardt name, requests a Sprint Cup (or whatever the hell the series is by then) race date.

NASCAR gives them a date and adds to the plethora of tracks all within 600 miles or turns them down risking the considerable wrath of Junior Nation.

Frankly, it’s a scenario I look forward to if for no other reason it would provide blog fodder for weeks, if not months.

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