Economy may curb local NASCAR plans

Steve Marcus

By Richard N. Velotta (contact)

Fri, Sep 4, 2009 (3 a.m.)

If local boosters of NASCAR racing have their way, Labor Day weekends in Las Vegas will be dedicated to putting the finishing touches on preparing the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for a big night race.

NASCAR has legions of fans, many who travel across the country to 36 Sprint Cup series races to follow their favorite drivers.

Fans are thrilled by the action — fleet, colorful race cars averaging speeds of more than 120 mph — and the danger of those speeds. They enjoy accessibility to drivers who make public appearances at various locations during race weekends.

With a capacity of 145,000, the speedway can easily host the state’s best-attended sporting event. Before the economy sank, NASCAR races routinely drew 130,000 fans to the track, but even the average attendance of 110,000 is big — bigger, in fact, than the attendance at the National Football League’s Super Bowl game.

Adding a second NASCAR race to Las Vegas’ roster of special events seems like a no-brainer, but plenty of obstacles stand in the way of the city getting what is widely viewed as one of the most lucrative economic boosts possible.

“It’s something that is openly discussed, but there is nothing on the table at this point,” said Julian Dugas, director of sports marketing, sports and sponsorships for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

“Las Vegas is a wonderful platform and a wonderful place for a race to be held. If there is an opportunity to bring in a second race, I’m confident that the powers that be will do everything to make that happen.”

Dugas views the weekend after Labor Day as an ideal date for Las Vegas because no special events are regularly scheduled for then.

But it isn’t as easy as just calling NASCAR’s executives and rolling out the welcome mat.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup series is a season of races beginning in Daytona, Fla., in February and ending in Homestead, Fla., in November. Throughout the summer, racers and fans trek to tracks across the country. The series’ 36 races are staged at 20 tracks. Fourteen tracks have two races a year; the other eight races are at tracks with a single event per year.

That’s where Las Vegas is today.

It stages its Sprint Cup races during an early March weekend, before uncomfortably warm weather arrives and before March Madness basketball fans hit town.

Race weekends actually start well before Friday with a number of sponsored events, meet-and-greets and related activities for fans who arrive early.

On Fridays, drivers qualify for pole positions in the race by running their cars at top speeds in time trials with no other driver on the track. Speeds reach more than 175 mph in qualifying.

Saturday is occupied with the Nationwide series, the second tier of professional NASCAR racing. For years, Sam’s Town has sponsored the Nationwide series race known as the Sam’s Town 300.

The grand finale is the Sprint Cup race on Sunday. First run on March 1, 1998, the 400-mile premiere event has had several sponsors over the years, most notably the United Auto Workers and DaimlerChrysler, which held the title sponsorship for seven years.

Initially known as the Las Vegas 400 in 1998 and 1999, carsdirect.com sponsored the race in 2000. From 2001 to 2007, the race was known as the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400. When Chrysler was split from Daimler AG in 2007, the sponsorship shifted and became the UAW-Dodge 400 in 2008. Last year automaker Carroll Shelby, who has a Las Vegas facility, sponsored the event, known as the Shelby 427. Shelby had a one-year deal for the event that so far has no sponsor for 2010.

“When a company sponsors a special event, its name is widely used in all race materials,” Dugas said. “They’re in commercials and news stories and have their logo all over.”

Chris Powell, president and general manager of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, said his seven-person sales team sells everything from race entitlements to one-inch advertisements in race programs to suites to billboards to hospitality packages for corporations, etc. A sponsor is still being sought for the 2010 race weekend Feb. 26-28.

“It’s definitely more challenging today than it was five years ago,” Powell said of the effort to secure a sponsor. “NASCAR is no more immune to the effects of this economy, and that is what we’ve been dealing with.”

He said several companies, nationally and locally, are considering the sponsorship, which will have a seven-figure price tag.

“We’re not going to undersell it due to the difficult economy, but we are more willing to negotiate on pricing,” Powell said. The race entitlement allows a company to put its name on the race, which is broadcast nationally by Fox and worldwide on various cable television packages. The sponsor also gets its logo painted on the infield grass at the track and access to the sponsor’s suite, which has prime seats for 120 guests.

“It’s a wonderful way to brand a company and tie it into one of the most popular sports going on today,” Powell said. “It’s one of the marquee events of 36 in the sport, plus it’s associated with Las Vegas.”

The Las Vegas angle is what drives Dugas and the convention authority, whose mission is to help develop special events that drive visitation that puts heads in beds in local resorts

Race weekend is worth $106.9 million in nongaming revenue to Southern Nevada, according to the authority, but that doesn’t tell the whole story about how important NASCAR is to Las Vegas.

The authority has tracked occupancy rates for weekends immediately before and after the event and for the years preceding the city’s hosting of the race. In the 12 years that NASCAR has come to town, all but one year a higher occupancy rate on the weekend of the race compared with the previous week. In some cases, the increase is dramatic — a 7.2 percentage point jump in 2007, for example.

In 2008 occupancy in the city went from 91 percent Feb. 22-23 to 96.3 percent Feb. 29-March 1. In 2009, it went from 89.8 percent Feb. 20-21 to 94.8 percent Feb. 27-28. With a room capacity of 140,529 in Southern Nevada, the authority’s count at the end of 2008, a 5 percentage point swing represents the sale of more than 7,000 additional hotel rooms

But the economy is taking its toll.

Like many high-profile sporting events, the 2010 NASCAR race is dropping ticket prices. Powell said the low-end ticket will cost $49, down from about $85.

Powell said he expects the lower price may the attention of local fans who have stayed away because of prices or fear about traffic — an issue Powell says is more hype than reality.

Although the speedway has limited access, Powell said some simple improvements in traffic flow has made race day more enjoyable. “We used to have a single-lane exit off northbound I-15, then people had to make a sharp right turn, then a sharp left turn into the parking area,” he said. “We changed the access so that we now have three lanes and they flow directly into the lot, so it’s a lot smoother now.”

Working with the Nevada Transportation Department, Highway Patrol and Metro Police, speedway officials have figured out the bottlenecks and developed a convenient flow for buses, taxis and autos.

Powell hopes as the word gets out that traffic isn’t as big a headache as some think it will draw more local fans.

He added that the fan experience has improved with the addition of two terrace grandstands and the “Neon Garage,” a close-access area where fans can views of cars and crews working on them. It also has live entertainment.

So will the Las Vegas Motor Speedway get a second race?

Powell said local officials will keep trying, but there’s a limited number of dates available.

Fans close to the sport point out that executives who run NASCAR operate a sister company, ISC, that owns many of the tracks where races are run, including Daytona International Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Phoenix International Raceway.

Speedway Motorsports Inc., headed by Bruton Smith, owns several other tracks, including the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Adding a fall race in Las Vegas would mean taking a race away from one of the other tracks — a tough road considering the economic effect races have on their respective communities.

But local advocates are in it for the long haul and will continue to make the city’s case.