Kansas Speedway Reconstruction

I don't think there has been any discussion on this topic and if so, I apologize for starting a new thread. I'm guessing we were just too preoccupied this past week for the Kentucky Speedway debacles and the IRP shaft to notice the big plans for Kansas. Now that the casino dollars are set to roll in, ISC is finally admitting that they built a real cookie cutter dog with that boring place. I've posted the Kansas City Star story below and I'm a little miffed that either Richmond or Darlington's spring date will be stolen for Kansas this next season. Let's hope they have some success with the reconstruction. An infield road course will be added and the track practically redesigned it sounds like.

Kansas Speedway to undergo track repaving and reconfiguration in 2012

By RANDY COVITZ The Kansas City Star

Kansas Speedway will have a whole new look in its second decade of racing. The track, which opened in 2001, will undergo a massive renovation project next year that will include repaving the existing track surface, reconfiguring and re-banking the 1.5 mile tri-oval and adding a new infield road course for the GrandAm.Sports Car Series. The changes will begin immediately following the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup STP 400 next spring and completed in time for the Sprint Cup Hollywood Casino 400 in October 2012. The 2012 schedule has not been set by NASCAR, but Kansas Speedway president Pat Warren said the STP 400 will be in early spring in order to provide as much time necessary to get the paving project finished. This years spring race weekend was June 4-5, but the 2012 dates will likely be either April 28-29 or May 5-6, dates formerly held by fellow International Speedway Corporation tracks Richmond and Darlington. The life span for a track surface is usually about 20 years, but Warren said the recent harsh winters made repaving after only 11 years a must. Weve had the worst weather in the country as it relates to asphalt, said Warren. All you have to do is look around at the highways and streets in our city to understand that. Its even worse when youve got a high-performance asphalt track that doesnt have any opportunity in the winter for cars or anything to warm it up. Warren said the reconfiguration of the track, including variable banking, will create better side-by-side racing. The current corners at Kansas Speedway are a flat 15 degrees, but the new track will start at 18 degrees and increase up to 20 degrees in the turns. In addition to the turns, the front stretch, back stretch and pit road will all be reconstructed. That will allow the cars to run different lines around the track at different degrees of banking, which increases better side-by-side racing, Warren said. You might have one lane thats 18 degrees, and one lane thats 18.5. So the two cars could run next to each other even though one is running higher and therefore a further distance around the track, its also got more bank and can carry more speed. Iowa Speedway, which hosts NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World World Trucks Series events as well as IZOD IndyCar events; and Homestead in Miami, site of the final NASCAR weekend of the season, have similar banking. They want to make it more of what weve seen at Homestead or what weve seen at the progressive-banked tracks which I agree with, NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Kurt Busch said of repaving Kansas Speedway after winning the pole at the June race. Youve got to keep it within reason though to make sure the track has the right amount of banking if IndyCar ever wants to come back here. That way youre not just tailoring it to the big heavy stock cars. Other drivers said the track has never been better. Dont pave it, trucks series champion Todd Bodine said after his third-place finish in June. Why are they talking about paving it? When it was first built, we couldnt run wide open and now, even in the trucks, were out there sliding around, and youre driving the heck out of it every lap. Thats why see you great racing here. Yeah, its got a couple of bumps and its wore out, but thats what makes it fun. It separates good trucks from bad ones and good cars from bad ones and good drivers. It makes it fun. Anybody can go fast on fresh pavement. Warren agreed that some drivers like tracks as they age, and if we just re-paved what we have now, it would really create a challenge as it relates to the quality of the racing. But going back in with the variable banking will really help because you wont have the issues we had in the first couple of years we were open when we really had a one-groove race track. Kansas Speedway is expected to start hosting GrandAm Sports Car Series road course races in 2013 as part of a promise ISC made to the state of Kansas when it was awarded the Hollywood Casino that will open in spring 2012. ISC Design and Development will oversee the repaving and road course projects. Warren declined to reveal the cost of the project other than to say its significant. It cost about $20 million to repave Daytona International Speedway a 2.5-mile track last year.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:02:07PM

Then, again, we could just put a "real" racetrack like Rockingham or Wilkesboro back on the schedule and admit that regardless of the marketing effort and desire of NASCAR sponsors to be in Southern California at Ontario/Riverside/Fontana or in the Kansas heartlandwe've never been able to draw flies there compared to some of our "forgotten" venues andeven ifwe did draw, the racing was usually boring. I used to love going to Riverside, but the locals hardly knew we were in town.


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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

Just checking out their lipstick, that's all.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

Sorry, but I have LESS than zero interest in moving Atlanta back to a March date. And based on the attendance figures, I think the people that no-showed the spring race in Atlanta in recent years back that up. And at this point, I tend to believe Bruton Smith and his people could care less about the Atlanta market. But what fails to get recognized is that Bruton was the one that reconfigured the track when it was doing just fine as the season finale, and Bruton was the one responsible for overbuilding the track, giving it the illusion that it is empty when it has in fact close to 150,000 seats.

Patty's sentiment about the cars is the key.As Bruton and the other cronies juggle the schedlule I yawn ......

I remember being snowed in at the College Park, GA Courtyard Marriott, which ran out of food, along with the MRN crew for several nights one March. The race went down the tubes and Atlanta Hartsfield cancelled all flights.

That was an awful weekend.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

I think my point from my original comment last night is that Bruton Smith is as much to blame for the decline of Nascar as Nascar. Granted Nascar has the final say in matters, but let's look at history.

1990/91- Bruton buys Atlanta, then promptly renames it AMS.

1992- Quite possibly the greatest single race in Nascar history happens at Atlanta, the 1992 Hooters 500.

1996- Buys half-ownership of North Wilkesboro, then takes 1 of its 2 dates away for hissecond cookie cutter track, Texas.

1997- Turns Atlanta into yet another clone of Charlotte/Texas, all in the name of overexpansion.

2004- Buys Rockingham from ISC, then steals its lone race date for Texas.

2005- Repaves Charlotte, then watches 22 cautions at the Coke 600.

2007- Ruins Bristol Motor Speedway with his "progressive banking" idea...

2008- Buys New Hampshire, yet refuses to get rid of one of its dates despite Loudon being quite possibly the most boring race on the circuit.

2010- Takes a date away from Atlanta and gives it to Kentucky.

July 9, 2011- Watches a traffic nightmare as some fans sit in traffic for as many as 7 hours to get to the track. Some fans report only seeing 30 laps of the race!

And that's not even mentioning all of the strong arming he pulls with the local government in Charlotte RE: taking his 4 lane dragstrip and going home. I could go on and on. But it's obvious Bruton only cares about one thing: greed. He could care less about the average race fan. At least Humpy Wheeler finally saw through his facade.

Jay, I wouldn't argue with the points you make. Probably the only thing Bruton hasn't been guilty of in Atlanta was scheduling "The Winston" there on Mother's Day. That was in the Walter Nix / Mike Helton era. Then again, maybe Bruton did have something to with that deal... that fiasco pretty permanently cemented the event at CMS, very contrary to what RJ Reynolds had told the track promoters that the event would be a revolving one around the circuit. See how good your memory is: Bruton & Humpy put up U.S.Tobacco/Skoal signage at CMS. RJR boycotted CMS events. Next thing you know, we had a CMS Winston Media Center, no Skoal signage and a permanent Winston backed all star race at CMS, instead of all around the circuit as the promoters had been promised. Bruton got everything he wanted and RJR rolled over for him.


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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"