Be it an exhibition race like The Clash or All-Star Race or even points races across all three national tours, Cup Series drivers expressed a conviction over the weekend that NASCAR has a degree of responsibility regarding the preservation of short tracks.
The Clash took place at Bowman Gray Stadium over the weekend.
It was the first time that the highest level of the discipline has competed at the Winston-Salem, North Carolina short track inside of a football stadium since the 1971 season. The venue is also the longest continually running weekly track under NASCAR sanctioning, having run under the banner for the past 77 years.
NASCAR even acquired the lease to promote racing at the track for the next 50 years so the sanctioning body had a financial interest towards investing into the stadium.
Speedway Motorsports owns North Wilkesboro Speedway, and with an assist from federal funds issued by the state of North Carolina, revitalized that track to get it ready for the All-Star Race. As a result of that investment, Wilkesboro has also been utilized by short track touring bodies like CARS Tour, ASA, the SMART Modified Tour and Whelen Modified Tour.
The same federal funds issued by North Carolina also allowed the revitalization of Rockingham Speedway, which will host the Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series on Easter weekend.
But these concepts have spurned conversations about the NASCAR industry and its responsibility and opportunity to take the Cup Series to other short tracks, using broadcast money to get them ready for the highest level, but also ensuring their viability for decades to come.
“I really like the opportunity here at Bowman Gray where I don’t know what the budgets are — I don’t know if it’s three million, five million, seven million, 10 million, I don’t know,” Busch said. “The fact of us going somewhere to reinvest in the future for other racing and local level racers – to be able to see a better venue, to go and enjoy and bring their sponsors and have fun and race and compete, is only going to benefit from the top.
“Bringing that down here to Bowman Gray, seeing the upgrades here, looking at other tracks around the county we could do some of the same stuff. There are short tracks in Florida that are cool. (Five Flags Speedway) Pensacola is one of them that would really benefit from this opportunity. There’s a couple in Alabama that would really benefit from this opportunity. That could be a really cool thing down the road that this continues to float around.”
Is there a return on investment for NASCAR?
“I don’t know, but I think the return on investment is the younger generations and the younger racers that want to be somebody and get to race at a cool place, and then can move up the ladder and someday, one day go back and race at their home track as a pro,” Busch said.
Clash winner Chase Elliott called it ‘paramount’ that NASCAR contributes to saving short tracks and putting them in a position to succeed using marquee events as such a catalyst.
“You hate to see (and) ‘historic’ might be the wrong word, but the cornerstone racetracks of what paved NASCAR to be what it is today shut down or go away,” Elliott said. “If us having a race or if it’s the Rockingham case where those guys are taking Xfinity and Trucks over there, if that’s going to keep that place alive and keep it from shutting down or getting bulldozed, then I think that’s a victory for motorsports.
“Whether it’s NASCAR or whatever, I just think having these racetracks survive this day and time is a really big deal. We need to try to make sure we’re doing as much as we can to keep those places in business and give us the opportunity to even return there one day, right?”
Elliott does his part, frequently running a Super Late Model at short tracks across the country when his schedule permits.
“What happens if the effort from the state didn’t happen and Rockingham goes away, North Wilkesboro goes away,” Elliott said. “They get bulldozed (and) we can’t have special moments to return to anywhere because they’re gone.
“I just think it’s important that we do what we can to make these places continue to be special here in the region, which obviously has a big footprint with NASCAR and the history here. I think we can expand, grow, try new things while doing that all at the same time.”
Ryan Preece said New Smyrna Speedway, just 20 minutes south of Daytona International Speedway, would be a good place to host The Clash and receive some television money if NASCAR needs to fill the schedule some year.
“It’s really tough because there are different little pockets in the United States that are really passionate about racing,” Preece said. “The challenge of it is it’s February but if I was going to say there’s somewhere that would be really cool to kick off Speedweeks or basically Speed Month when it comes to racing in February all the way through, is New Smyrna.
“If they weren’t going to be able to go to Bowman Gray Stadium and they were looking for another venue, New Smyrna, to me, seems like such a perfect fit when it comes to the racing — adding us to the Super Late Models, Tour Type Modified and all the dirt racing going on in that state.”
Last year, Chris Gabehart, now the competition director for Joe Gibbs Racing, made a lot of these same points too.
“I’ve been an advocate for years of investing naturally in our short tracks by moving a few Cup dates around every other year or so to the short tracks,” Gabehart said. “South Boston is a prime market for that. I think you can inject a lot of natural capital into it because you bring Cup and TV money and everything with that to the facility, you force that facility to use X amount of money for capital upgrades, and that’s a natural renovation of sorts.
“Then we move on to the next town and that next track and these events will carry the short track community for the next 15 to 20 years. These are medium to long term investments and it’ll take years to see the benefit of that but we as an industry need to invest in the infrastructure to keep building our future.”
William Byron made a similar point last year as well.
“There’s plenty but the (Nashville) Fairgrounds is always front of mind,” Byron said. “I feel like there, and I haven’t been to a lot of the North Carolina tracks, but there’s Tri-County, Orange County, but the Fairgrounds is big enough to put on a good Cup race. Rockingham too, even though it’s been repaved.
“Looking at the way the NextGen races on short tracks, the shorter the track and the slower the speeds right now, the better the racing is too so it opens up a lot of these bullrings.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
