Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502080022
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT HARVEY ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.VA. LENGTH: Long
This is stock car country. Yet it is without a major stock car race or a track to run it on.
Racing industry experts say it's a matter of money and timing.
It would take at least $30 million, the cost of Marshall University's four-year-old football stadium, to build a track for a NASCAR event. Even if built, there's no guarantee that West Virginia could get one of NASCAR's coveted Winston Cup races.
Without one of those events, the track wouldn't pay for itself. But with a Winston Cup race, the gamble would pay off handsomely, according to development and racing industry officials.
Investor Bob Bahre faced the same situation in New Hampshire.
Because Bahre loves the sport and could obtain the needed money, he built the 68,000-seat New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, N.H.
``It was real tough,'' Bahre said. ``But [NASCAR] was very good to me. No way can I fault them. Still, we went three years without [them] even looking at the place for a Winston Cup [event].''
NASCAR finally held a Winston Cup race in Loudon last year and will do so again this year.
Bahre says the track, built in 1990, is finally starting to make a profit, although he won't say how much.
``If you had two dates a year, it would really be profitable,'' Bahre said.
Ann Kennard, publicity director for New Hampshire's Office of Travel and Tourism, said the Winston Cup race has generated plenty of tourism by featuring spots on the TV networks that carry stock car racing. A two-minute segment generated 500 inquiries from abroad within three hours, she said.
``You just get people here. That's the ballgame,'' she said. ``And then we show off New Hampshire to its best advantage.''
John Brown, West Virginia's former commissioner of tourism, says a Winston Cup race in the Mountain State would be a big help.
Brown helped bring the K mart Classic bicycle race to West Virginia in 1990. Gov. Gaston Caperton once hoped the race would become the state's version of the Kentucky Derby, and although it has created exposure and tourism dollars, it hardly can be compared to the Derby.
The bike race's attendance of a few thousand is dwarfed by the 60,000 to 100,000 people who throng to Winston Cup races, and the millions more who watch NASCAR events on national TV.
``One of the fastest growing aspects of tourism and visitors is NASCAR,'' Brown said. ``They've got an audience now that's grown faster than any kind of sports audience going. ... I think it would be terrific for West Virginia to get a NASCAR race. If we can get a major tourism event like NASCAR, it's going to provide a heck of a lot of money and a heck of a lot of jobs.''
``I'm a NASCAR fan and I would be delighted,'' said Jim Lawrence, who has Brown's old job. ``And I have talked to quite a few people in the state who think that would be great. It's great for tourism. It brings a lot of the [recreational vehicle] people who stay for several days.''
Lawrence said it would take rich investors with close ties to NASCAR's powers - the kind of developers who have yet to express interest in bringing a Winston Cup track to the Mountain State.
Brown believes they're out there.
A longtime NASCAR fan, John Jamison of Glenville, said state officials should pursue a Winston Cup-grade track.
He pointed to the state Parkways, Economic Development and Tourism Authority's project to build an arts and craft center in Beckley that is targeted at travelers on the West Virginia Turnpike. The facility will cost $15 million to build and another $15 million in changes to the turnpike.
``It just looks to me like [a NASCAR track] would be money much better spent. It would attract a large group of people who spend money,'' Jamison said.
Jamison attends several Winston Cup races a year and says that many serious fans spend four or five days at a race, watching qualifying and preliminary races before the main event.
``You spend money on gas and you spend money on food,'' he said. ``And once you get in a racetrack, Coke is $2 and a hamburger is $2.50. Nothing's cheap at a racetrack, but you expect to spend dollars there.''
Jamison said many of the fans he sees at tracks in North Carolina and even farther south are from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.
``You know if they could get the same thing in West Virginia and save driving five hours, they would,'' he said. ``And they would spend a ton of money in West Virginia.''
Yet Andy Hall, NASCAR director of public relations, hardly sounds encouraging.
``There are several people talking now about building tracks who are talking $30, $40 or $50 million,'' Hall said. ``Even if they build a track, there's no guarantee they'd get a race because our schedule is full.''
Hall said NASCAR has added one Winston Cup race every other year for the past seven or eight years and now has a schedule of 31 races.
Dave Morgan, who covers motor sports for The Charleston Gazette, agreed it would be very tough for West Virginia to find its way onto the ``already brutal'' Winston Cup schedule.
It would need some clever promotional way to make the race unique and special enough ``to justify taking the [NASCAR] teams from their families for another weekend,'' Morgan said.
Steve Baker, promoter of I-79 Speedway, a dirt track in Shinnston, said it would be highly unlikely for West Virginia ever to attract a Winston Cup race because of the finances, crowded schedule and other considerations. If it ever did happen, he said, ``it'd be unbelievable what they'd get back in return.''
``For instance, the Charlotte [N.C.] area, when they have a race, you're talking between 100,000 and 150,000 people converging on the area for four to five days,'' Baker said. ``You can imagine what that does for the economy in the surrounding areas. I think West Virginia would be a good place, because within four hours of West Virginia is a lot of population in the United States.''
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB