NASCAR president promises that Kentucky problems will be solved

NASCAR president promises that Kentucky problems will be solved

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(July 15, 2011)

LOUDON, N.H.—Perhaps the most striking aspect of NASCAR president Mike Helton’s conversation with reporters Friday morning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was what Helton didn’t say.

Helton took time to address the traffic problems that plagued last week’s inaugural Sprint Cup event at Kentucky Speedway. Many fans saw only a portion of the race. An estimated 20,000 ticket holders never made it to the track at all.

“We take what happened last week very seriously,” Helton said. “Immediately, conversations opened up between NASCAR, the track, Speedway Motorsports (Kentucky Speedway’s parent company), from the highest of levels on the NASCAR side and the highest of levels on Speedway Motorsports side.”

Involved in those discussions, Helton said, were NASCAR executive vice president and International Speedway Corp. chairman Jim France, NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France, ISC CEO Lesa Kennedy, SMI chairman Bruton Smith and SMI president and COO Marcus Smith.

“The intent is to find out exactly what happened so that a cure or fix can be determined,” he said. “We will not rest until we have figured that out.”

NASCAR and the speedways that host NASCAR events currently are working on sanctions and schedules for next year. Helton was asked whether he was confident Kentucky would have a Cup date next year.

He could have said NASCAR was confident that Kentucky Speedway would resolve its traffic issues and be back on the 2012 schedule, but he didn’t.

Instead, Helton replied, “I don’t want to speculate on that type of thing. I can’t help but think—you look at the history of our sport—we’ve had issues that happen, and we generally figure out how to work through them.

“I think what we’re after right now is to figure out what happened in Sparta and figure out what the cure is for it. Outside of that, I don’t have an opinion at this point. But we’re working toward a resolution.”

Helton said NASCAR had met with Kentucky Speedway officials several times before the race to go over a traffic plan.

“I know on one trip up there myself, in the lobby of the office complex, there was material there that showed … very well thought-out, very nice, presentable piece, full color page of the traffic ingress, and then there was another page of traffic egress that was, according to the track folks, being mailed to the ticket buyers and was available to everybody to pick up.

“I think part of what we want to know now is, was that plan followed correctly or what might have interfered with the preparation that went into the event that caused what happened?”