For the second time in the 2008 season, Kentucky Speedway has sold an event out.  Saturday’s IndyCar Series, “Meijers Indy 300 Presented by Pepsi and Edy’s” sold out all of the 66,089 grandstand seats and was offering standing-room-only tickets.  After all was said and done, total attendance for the race was 66,389 fans making it the most attended IndyCar Series event at Kentucky Speedway to date.

Back in June, the NASCAR Nationwide Series ran in front of a sold out crowd of 73,195.  This is the first time in the track’s history that it has hosted two sold-out events during a single season.

With 26 cars taking the green flag, Scott Dixon completed a last-lap pass of Helio Castroneves 500 feet before the finish line to grab the win for Chip Ganassi Racing.  Bringing his wins to six for the season ties the series record for wins in a season.  The victory at Kentucky gained Dixon 13 points which leaves him 78 points ahead of Castroneves in the series.  Castroneves is seeking his first series title.

The event marks the end of another successful and news packed season at Kentucky.  Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports International announced back in May that it would be purchasing Kentucky Speeday.  That sale is scheduled to complete in October.

I just received an interesting, albeit very short, release from Kentucky Speedway.  According to the release, Kentucky Speedway chairman, Jerry Carroll commented on the speedway hosting a Sprint Cup event in 2009.  “Our group is confident that comments made by Bruton Smith, and, our agreement, will continue to come to fruition.”

I can only guess that given SMI’s reputation of buying tracks for dates, Carroll has been getting some questions about the logic behind the deal.

Now, this poses a problem.  There are currently 36 dates on the calendar and, numerous times, drivers have commented that they would like to have more time off, not less.  This all but eliminates the possibility of adding an additional date to the calendar.  So, this means that one of the current dates would need to be moved.

It makes sense that only the SMI tracks are candidates for losing a date.  Looking at the list, I can’t see one that would be a good candidate to drop a date.  Now, the last time the Bruton Smith needed a Cup date, he bought Rockingham and he and Bob Bahre each took a date from the track effectively killing it.  That is, until Andy Hillenburg bought it last year and brought ARCA racing back to the track.  In case you’re keeping score at home, Texas Motor Speedway and New Hampshire were the tracks that benefited from the Rocks death.  New Hampshire was purchased last year by SMI.

I can’t help but wonder how Bruton Smith will pull this one off or if he even will.  As I mentioned yesterday, I’m not quite sure if this is good or bad for Kentucky Speedway.  Only time will tell.

Well, I haven’t decided if this one’s good or bad yet.  This is especially close to my heart as I live in Kentucky so, this is my home track in essence.  Man, oh man….  Humpy retired yesterday and this was announced today, coincidence?  I can’t help but to think of North Wilkesboro and Rockingham when SMI purchased both of them.  We all know how well that one worked out for the pair of NC tracks.  North Wilkesboro sits in ruin and Rockingham was saved only last year from the dozers.  In the interest of being fair, I’ll reserve judgement until more info is known.  I’ll post the full press release below for your review. 

jc

Courtesy: Kentucky Speedway Media

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 22, 2008) – Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK) has agreed to purchase Kentucky Speedway from Kentucky Speedway, LLC. The agreement was announced today by O. Bruton Smith, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.  The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Kentucky Speedway, which opened in 2000, hosts one NASCAR Nationwide Series event, one NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event, one IndyCar Series event and other racing events each year.  The speedway is located in Sparta, Ky., approximately one-half hour south of Cincinnati, Ohio. The speedway is easily accessible via modern highways.

Located on approximately 820 acres, Kentucky Speedway features a 1.5-mile tri-oval speedway, with chair-back grandstand seating for 66,089 spectators, 50 luxury suites with seats for approximately 2,000, 100 private RV spaces, 200 reserved camping spaces and 1,000 unreserved camping spaces. Kentucky Speedway regularly hosts near capacity crowds for its Nationwide Series events.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our company to grow into a new market in a modern speedway facility. We continue to be committed to investing in the motorsports industry,” said Smith.

Smith added that he has offered Jerry Carroll, who was instrumental in the development of Kentucky Speedway, the opportunity to remain involved in its future operations.

Kentucky Speedway will join an outstanding lineup of SMI facilities. The company also owns and operates Atlanta Motor Speedway; Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn.; Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.; Las Vegas Motor Speedway; Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.; New Hampshire Motor Speedway, in Loudon, N.H.; and Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, Texas.

With this acquisition, the company will own race tracks in the West, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and Southwest, including four of the nation’s top-10 metropolitan markets.

The breakdown includes: the sixth-largest market (Infineon/San Francisco); the fifth-largest market (Texas/Dallas-Ft. Worth); the seventh-largest market (New Hampshire/Boston); the ninth-largest market (Atlanta); the 24^th-largest market (Cincinnati); the 25^th-largest market (Lowe’s/Charlotte); the 41^st-largest market (Las Vegas); and the 92^nd-largest market (Bristol/Tri-Cities).

ARCA RE/MAX Series drivers Justin Allagaier, Patrick Sheltra and Tom Hessert were at Kentucky Speedway yesterday to preview for the May 10th season-opening “Drive Smart! Buckle-Up Kentucky 150” that Erik Darnell won in 2007.

Allagaier who is in the series points lead has always performed well at Kentucky Speedway with two top fives and three top ten finishes out of five previous starts.

“You attack (this track) as you would anywhere. You come in here with your best equipment intent on being the best you can. I’ve always loved Kentucky from the first time we raced here. It’s been a great racetrack for us. We’ve had some really good runs and finished fourth a couple of years ago.

Kentucky Speedway is one of my favorites especially because I live in Kentucky but even if I didn’t, it’s just an incredible facility.  Tickets are still available for the season opener.  Check the website at http://www.kentuckyspeedway.com/.  Looks like a cool night of racing with Paul Hahn defending his 2007 win of the ARCA Lincoln Welders Truck Series "Kentucky 100" at 5:00PM and the ARCA RE/MAX event at 8:00PM.