Did You Notice? … There are a dozen NASCAR tracks left on the Cup Series schedule with two race dates?
Kansas Speedway remains one of them. The track hosted a highly competitive event on Sunday (May 15), but its biggest drag was below-average attendance in a year NASCAR popularity has been increasing.
I’m not sure if people looked at the weather and didn’t expect us to start on time or what but there are a lot of empty seats. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/aZ5Pz1IE26
— Beth Lunkenheimer (@NASCARBeth) May 15, 2022
The race itself also wound up with lower television ratings, down nearly half-a-million viewers from last season in one of the year’s few disappointments. It’s also not the first time Kansas has come up in terms of lagging popularity either.
In NASCAR President Steve Phelps’ State of the Sport press conference last November, he specifically referenced Kansas along with Texas Motor Speedway, where the All-Star Race is being held this weekend, as tracks that need improvement.
Phelps on attendance:
— Texas: “We can all agree Texas wasn’t our best foot forward for the year.” Adds Texas had “unacceptable level of tickets sold in that marketplace.”
— Kansas: More than 80% of tickets were sold, only 60% showed up (weather).
— Most tracks up vs. 2019.
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) November 5, 2021
That tweet by Jeff Gluck sums it up nicely. At the end of last season, when most tracks were up versus 2019 attendance, Texas and Kansas struggled … and their reward was still having two dates on the Cup schedule.
Taking a closer look at which tracks still have two dates, I’d split them into four categories. Some are more easily explainable than others.
Daytona, Darlington, Martinsville, Talladega: Tradition.
Daytona International Speedway is the home of NASCAR’s Super Bowl, the Daytona 500. Darlington Raceway is the track that produced the first 500-mile superspeedway race on asphalt, the Southern 500. Talladega Superspeedway is the largest…
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