I first heard the term “voodoo economics” uttered by candidate George Bush, the elder. This seems to fit some of the recent goings on in racing.
Last month, Bruton Smith purchased New Hampshire Int’l Speedway for 345 million Washingtons. I was shocked that a majority of racing people barely furrowed a brow over this.
What Smith got for his more-than-one-third a billion bucks was one of the smallest seating capacities on the NASCAR Cup circuit.
Many think that this was a brilliant move by Smith to move (I prefer “carpertbagging”) one of his NHIR dates to his larger Las Vegas facility and to have the keynote race to The Chase there.
 But hold on a minute. Even though I’m sure Smith didn’t fall of a turnip truck, it seems like some vegetables are involved here. I’m just a guy on a pension, and I’m not a big-business expert, but this deal seems strange.
The speedway was built by Bob Bahre a little more than 15 years ago for less than $20 million. The price paid by Smith is a markup one would think of in the retail furniture industry.
I don’t know all the exact figures but New Hampshire holds 90,000 spectators. Las Vegas, about 60,000 more. It costs $125 just to walk into Las Vegas. Most buy seats. If the average is $200 a head, then Vegas brings in $12 million more a race. Add in other costs like parking, concessions and vendor rental and we’ll make it twenty million.
That seems a lot less than the $345 million Smith invested.
He cannot move his date to Vegas until 2009 because the 2008 schedule has already been finalized. Smith is not gaining another date, just changing it. So New Hampshire will only have one Cup weekend.
Don’t forget, that to get the second New Hampshire race, Smith and Bahre purchased North Wilkesboro Speedway. The two dates there went to Texas, another Smith track and New Hampshire. North Wilkesboro has not run a race since. It was a much better artistic race than either of the other two.
Wilkes County has been left into an economic ghost town by the shuttering of the race track.
Now Smith has taken possesion of this run-down forgotten track.
Rockingham, which was carpetbagged out of existence a couple of years ago, was purchased by Andy Hillenburg for just $4 million. Thinking out loud, Smith could have expanded Wilkesboro into a Richmond-like facility and done the same with Rockingham for a lot less than what he spent on New Hampshire. It doesn’t make much sense.
How has NASCAR fared with its carpetbagging? Well, it did its best to run Darlington off the schedule, but fans ruined the plan by selling out.
The replacement for the traditional Southern 500 date at Darlington is California. This Cup race has more empty seats than any other and the Busch race runs before a deserted grandstand.
It all seems very weird. Something fishy is going on here. I think more of this will happen.
nMarty Himes and I had a great time at the Lost Track II forum held at the Saratoga Springs Auto Museum. The place is very impressive.
NSSN’s Ron Hedger is the racing coordinator and is doing a great job. We both appreciated the hospitality. I enjoyed listening to the other speakers talk about speedways I didn’t know much about.
It was great to meet Lew Boyd and Capital District racing legend Dick Hansen, although Lew doesn’t think Hansen is! We’ll do it again sometime.
Cutting in on Helio at 25 Emerson Place, Valley Stream, NY 11580. E-mail racewri771@aol.com.