Kansas Speedway

So where is Kansas going to get a second date from?  As it stands right now, ISC/Nascar's policy is to keep dates within ownership groups.  This means they must pull a date from another ISC track.  ISC tracks with two dates include California, Phoenix, Michigan, Daytona, Talladega, and Martinsville.  Well Daytona and Talladega aren't going to be losing dates so lets rule those out.  There are two criteria used to make the decision - attendance, and the importance of the market the race is in.  The quality of racing is NOT a criterion, otherwise Rockingham and North Wilkesboro would never have lost their races.  Of those two criteria, Nascar favors the importance of the market.  Thus I predict that Martinsville will lose it's race even though the racing is fun and the attendance is good.  Michigan and California have boring races but Michigan is relatively well attended, serves a large metro area and the home of the 3 American manufacturers, and Southern California is too big a market for Nascar to remove a race from, even though that race is both boring and very poorly attended.  Phoenix also serves a relatively large and growing market.

By the way, I predict that Pocono Speedway will be bought by ISC within the next few years to counter the purchase of Kentucky and New Hampshire by SMI.  If this happens within the next two years, Pocono will lose one of its dates to Kansas instead.

That Southern Cal has no interest in Nascar on a percentage basis, along with New York City, and the Pacific Northwest will be a topic for another rant.