February 5, 2010

Well the season has already started with a bang and a bold prediction.

The stock car portion of Speedweeks got underway this week at Daytona International Speedway, and right out of the block the pressure has been placed on Jimmie Johnson. The motorsports media picked Johnson to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship for the fifth consecutive year. You might think that’s not much of a stretch. However, the interesting fact is in his four previous titles, the media chose someone else to win the championship. Based on that statistic, I’m not sure Johnson has been blessed or cursed with the prediction.

It didn’t take long for the first on-track incident to take place in Daytona, as Denny Hamlin and Mark Martin got together to trigger a multi-car accident. Both admitted to trying to make the situation safer as Hamlin approached Martin, but this time it didn’t work as they had hoped.

The next couple of weeks should be very interesting to watch from Daytona. These two weeks typically set the tone of the season. Let’s hope for some safe and exciting races not just in Daytona but for the entire 2010 season.

January 29, 2010

Its been another big week for us at Talladega Superspeedway.

The seats for our grandstand project have arrived and installation started Monday. We began talking about this project several years ago and to see it starting to really take shape is exciting.

Just to give you an idea of how big of job this is, the communications team came up with some interesting facts.

For instance, 4.5 miles of caulk will be used on the job. That's enough to create a 1/2-inch strip around the track 1.5 times. When the job is complete, the concrete used will equal enough to pour the foundations for 300 single family homes and 45 miles of reinforcement steel will used in the concrete once completed.

But the fact I'm most proud of is this $13 million job has put 100 local people to work in our area and will put approximately $3.5 million directly into our community.

I hope you will follow our progress on our website, but more importantly I hope you join us in April to see it for yourself.

January 22, 2010

By now you’ve probably heard, but if you haven’t, let me tell you again . . . Bumpdrafting is back! That’s right, NASCAR made the announcement Thursday at its annual pre-season press conference to relax its restrictions on bumpdrafting in the turns at Daytona and Talladega. Many folks, including myself, believe this will make for even more exciting racing at Talladega, if that’s possible.

I’ve been asked how does NASCAR decide to change its rule and regulations? In this case it was pretty simple, they listened to the fans. Following the AMP Energy 500 last fall, many fans voiced their opinions that the on-track activity was less than what they had come to expect. They shared those opinions with us and with NASCAR. So while in Las Vegas in December, NASCAR met with all the promoters and informed us they would have meetings with the drivers and teams to address the fans’ concerns. Thursday’s announcement, that also included a larger restrictor plate as well as replacing the wing with a spoiler, was the result of those meetings.

As one veteran said Thursday, I’m as excited as I’ve ever been about getting a season started.

So keep up the good work race fans and let us know what you’re thinking. Because as you can tell, we’re all listening.

January 8, 2010

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and your New Year has started as great as mine.

The talk around Alabama today is the University of Alabama’s big victory over the University of Texas for the college football National Championship. My wife is an Alabama alum so our house pulls for the Crimson Tide every Saturday in the fall. However, last night’s victory was especially rewarding for me and the staff here at Talladega Superspeedway.

Earlier in the week we reached out to our friends at Texas Motor Speedway and placed a little wager on the game. Today, the Talladega Superspeedway flag flies high above the offices at Texas Motor Speedway and was raised there this morning by my counterpart Eddie Gossage.

Eddie is also sending us some brisket to enjoy next week.

More than 20 years ago I interned under Eddie at Charlotte Motor Speedway and over the years he’s fed me and others a lot of “bull.” This time, however, it’s some bull I can actually eat.

Roll Tide!!

December 21, 2009

Well it’s Christmas time and everything is supposed to be quiet around the racing world, but that’s certainly not the case. I have never seen more attention focused on the annual ARCA test at Daytona since I’ve been in the business. That’s right, I said annual ARCA test, as in they are in Daytona every December to get ready for the season opener. Some of you were probably not ever aware of that. This year the test was highlighted by Danica Patrick’s debut in a stock car. Early reports are pretty positive about her performance as she posted a speed in the top-20. You can be certain that a lot of attention will be placed on her in February.

I remember in 1999, Shawna Robinson finished second in the ARCA race at Daytona and we did a special promotion with her for the ARCA race at Talladega. If Shawna won the race here at TSS, we were going to award $100,000 to a fan. We did a lot of media around Shawna for that race, which created a lot of attention on her performance. While it wasn’t the magnitude that Danica is getting today, Shawna was a big focus of our fall weekend that year. While I can’t remember where she finished, I do recall her not finishing the race because of a wreck. Shawna recently posted on her Facebook status that she was about 10 years too early in her racing career. Maybe so, but she, along with the other female racers, must be credited with helping open the doors for the nine female drivers who were testing ARCA cars last weekend in Daytona.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

December, 15, 2009

Christmas is always a special time of year around Talladega Superspeedway.

Annually we participate with a local radio station to do an on-air auction to raise money for families in need. We have been doing this for about 13 years with Thunder 92.7 in Oxford and it has been a tremendous success. It’s been a very heart-warming experience as well. This year the event raised more than $13,000 that will go back out to families in local counties. While the amount is down a little from past years, it is certainly an amount we are as a staff are proud to be able to contribute.

What a great way to start the Christmas season. I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas.

December 7, 2009

The move to Las Vegas for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series banquet was well received. The comments were all very positive from the industry and the fans.

Fans lined the streets of Vegas for the Sprint Victory Lap and several hundred fans attended the banquet for the very first time.

These fans were guests of the tracks, drivers and others within the sport.

We invited long-time ticketholder Charlie Crawford and his wife to the banquet.

While Charlie was unable to attend, his wife Betty (top photo, L) and her friend Kathy (top photo, R) were able to attend and had a great time. It was a pleasure to spend time with Betty and Kathy and the other fans at the banquet.