NASCAR Cup Series

Helton apologizes for Kentucky traffic

Published Jul. 15, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

NASCAR President Mike Helton called the traffic debacle at Kentucky Speedway last Saturday night an “unfortunate episode” when discussing it on Friday.

While Helton said NASCAR was “very pleased and excited about the overall support that fans showed” for the inaugural NASCAR Sprint Cup event there, the sanctioning body is well aware that track logistics were well below the expected standards. Helton apologized to fans that experienced difficulties and promised to fix the situation.

“We take what happened last weekend very seriously,” Helton said. “Immediately conversations opened up between NASCAR, the track, (and track owner) Speedway Motorsports, from the highest of levels on the NASCAR side and the highest of levels on Speedway Motorsports side, Jim France, Brian France, Lesa Kennedy, Bruton Smith, Marcus (Smith), everybody is engaged in this topic. The intent is to find out exactly what happened so that a cure or fix can be determined. We will not rest until we have figured that out.

“As you know, we're in that time of year when we are working on the next season's calendar, so the timing of this is very important.”

NASCAR generally holds meetings with track operators in May at Charlotte Motor Speedway to discuss the following season's schedule. But with the urgency to revamp the marketing and public relations side of the sanctioning body, the early focus has shifted away from the calendar.

However, looking ahead to 2012, as sorely mismanaged as the inaugural event was, the question that must be asked is: Does Kentucky Speedway deserve a Sprint Cup date next year?

“I don't want to speculate on that type of thing,” Helton said. “I can't help but think, you look at the history of our sport, we've had issues that happen, and we generally figure out how to work through them.

“I think what we're after right now is to figure out what happened in Sparta (Ky.) and figure out what the cure is for it. Outside of that, I don't have an opinion at this point. But we're working toward a resolution.”

Despite being a track with 10 years of experience holding events, the operators were not prepared to handle the crowd once the seating expanded from 66,089 to 107,000 for Saturday night's race.

The horror stories are well-documented. There were numerous accounts of fans stuck in their cars for several hours attempting to navigate the last seven-mile stretch on Interstate 71 — only to be turned away from the parking lots. Those fortunate enough to gain access to the track waited up to seven hours to exit.

Speedway Motorsports Chairman O. Bruton Smith was extremely apologetic for the hardship fans endured during their trek to the track. Smith’s group plans to meet with Gov. Steve Beshear and other Kentucky officials to discuss solutions next Friday. While Smith would not go into specific solutions, he warmed to the idea of an additional exit south of the track from Highway 71.

Smith has already invested more than $100 million into the track’s infrastructure, but he readily admits “we’ve all learned a great deal” from the ordeal, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done.

“I am sincerely sorry that all of the fans did not get in there,” Smith said. “I’m sorry we had such traffic, although I had continuously warned people about that Interstate 71. I told everybody that would listen that that Interstate 71 sucked. It’s terrible. It’s the lousiest piece of interstate that I have ever driven on, and I was hoping that would get some attention. It maybe got a little, but it sure didn’t get a lot. That’s what we were dealing with, and I think that, when we go back there, you’ll find that maybe someone will have done something about it."

Helton said multiple meetings went into the planning of the Quaker State 400. Despite the track holding numerous Nationwide, Camping World Truck and IndyCar series events in the past, Helton says introducing a Cup race “takes it to a different level.”

“There were a lot of planning meetings, a lot of sessions that took place,” Helton said. “Our role in those is to have dialogue and have some types of assurances that the promoters of the event are experienced and are on the right track. When Speedway Motorsports bought Kentucky Speedway, obviously that facility inherited a lot of experience. Speedway Motorsports has a lot of experience promoting races and has shown over the history that they have the ability to host Cup races. The planning for this inaugural event there tracked true to the course.

“What was happening was a lot of construction, a lot of new work, some of which took place after the ownership change before we went back for Nationwide and Truck races last year. But a lot happened between (the) last races and this inaugural race for the Sprint Cup. We tracked those along the way. That kind of is a reliance by the NASCAR community on the promoter to host the events.”

Helton personally made a trip to Kentucky prior to the event and witnessed a traffic presentation that “according to the track folks” was made available to ticket buyers. Beyond the ingress and egress plans, the lack of parking is still curious.

“I think part of what we want to know now is, was that plan followed correctly or what might have interfered with the preparation that went into the event that caused what happened,” Helton said.

“There was a lot of work done at the racetrack prior to the Cup race moving in last weekend, not just on the racing surface, but in the parking lots. There was a lot of earth being moved out there in preparation to accommodate the Sprint Cup weekend. How all that came together last Friday and Saturday is what we have an interest in finding out.”

The track has 78 days and counting to make sure the Truck/IndyCar weekend in October does not experience the egregious mismanagement that occurred last weekend.

“I think it's a good opportunity to try stuff,” Helton said.

Sprint Cup driver Denny Hamlin, who experienced his own problems entering the track last Saturday before the race, believes the Kentucky Speedway “has got a lot of upgrades that needs to be done." But the driver has faith that the current ownership with tackle the challenges.

“When they built the racetrack, they weren’t going to put in a huge fan zone and four- or six-lane highways if they weren’t going to get a Cup race,” Hamlin said. “They just knew, I guess a year and a half ago or something like that. They had a lot of work that needed to be done in a year and a half and they just didn’t get to it all. I think in time they’ll get it figured out.

“Obviously, it has an owner in it that is not afraid to spend money and politic with the state. I think that the state is going to be willing to make some changes and obviously, above and beyond that they’ve got to have a better traffic strategy because I think that kind of failed.”

Despite Hamlin’s discomfort on the way to the track, he also sees a silver lining with traffic.

“I view it as a good thing that there was that much demand to get into a racetrack,” Hamlin added. “You hear stories of 10 years ago or so, how hard it was to get into racetracks and everything. Now you hear two hours before a race starts that we just drove right in. That’s not a good thing.

“You want there to be a little bit of traffic that means people are going to be filing into the racetrack and watching the race. I don’t -- when I left the racetrack, I saw this huge swarm of people coming from every which direction. I kind of look at it and smile that the demand for NASCAR is back."

Kentucky Speedway has offered to exchange tickets for fans that missed last Saturday night’s race for any other race at a Speedway Motorsports track this season or for the 2012 Quaker State 400. Nevertheless, the gesture will hardly alleviate the first impressions of the customers that attended or attempted to attend the event.