Kentucky’s inaugural race was uneventful

On Thursday I sat in the Kentucky Speedway media center and happened upon an article by Yahoo’s Jay Hart. He said that NASCAR’s move to Kentucky was a bad move. The race would be bland.

The green flag drops on the inaugural Quaker State 400 at Kentucky

“Nothing against the good people of the Bluegrass State, who have done their damndest to earn a Cup date, but I can’t get behind it,” he opined.

I thought, he can’t be right. The bumpiness of the track in Sparta made for some interesting races in the years I was there. The racetrack was going to be great for racing, drivers were going to search for multiple grooves in the track and the track was good enough to promote a lot of side-by-side racing.

I was wrong.

“If that weren’t enough, the racing at these cookie-cutter tracks tends to be really, really – what’s the word? – oh yeah, boring,” Hart said.

A view of the Quaker State 400 racing action from turn one at Kentucky Speedway

And after sitting back and thinking about it, I’d be hard pressed to do much but agree, and I’m not the only one.

Don’t get me wrong, I love NASCAR with every fiber of my being. I enjoyed being at the track this past weekend and truly enjoyed seeing NASCAR’s big boys at the track closest to my house. But the Quaker State 400, dare I say it, was boring.

Kurt and Kyle Busch ran away with the first part of the event, and due to long, green-flag runs, clean air was paramount.

A few weeks back Carl Edwards was angry about having to race downforce at tracks like Michigan rather than racing his competition.

“Sadly, downforce is such a big factor in these (current) cars, and I am really hoping NASCAR will take the opportunity in 2013 to take downforce away so the fans can see the guys race race cars and not race downforce,” Edwards said.

A view of the stands at Kentucky late in the race

He continued with, “Let's say all of the cars are a tenth (of a second) apart and you are behind two or three cars, your car is two-tenths of a second slower. You can't make (it) up. I'm not whining; Denny (Hamlin) earned this win and those are the rules we are under. Track position was huge, and I just wish it wasn't like that.”

“Track position is the name of the game,” said Lance McGrew to Mark Martin before the green flag dropped on Saturday night.

Even though there were a lot of late race passes, the first 150-plus laps were little more than a parade. At one point Busch had a ten-plus second lead.

I often hear non-NASCAR fans criticize me. ‘It’s so boring. I don’t know how you watch them just drive in circles,’ people tell me.

This week was NASCAR’s chance to impress first-time visitors to the track in Sparta. A lot of non-NASCAR fans were coming to Kentucky from Cincinnati, Louisville and Lexington for the first time. And if they feel that NASCAR is boring because it’s just guys driving in circles, I feel their feelings were confirmed by the first part of the race at Kentucky.

Even some NASCAR fans who were watching on TV tweeted at me during the race that the race was a little bland and boring.

And that is sad. I love Kentucky Speedway, but it’s going to be tough to sell people to come to a track that has a horrendous track record with parking and has questionable racing.

I wish it was better, but we’ve got one year to see if Kentucky will fix anything. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see what kind of improvements Bruton Smith and SMI make to the facility in Kentucky. They’ve got a long list of things to fix. We have to have faith that they’ll get it done.

But I’m afraid the damage has already been done.

Quaker State 400 Countdown: Bruton Smith and SMI bring Cup to Kentucky

“This place reminds me a lot of Bristol, Tennessee. The people seem to be the same, wonderful people that are involved in our sport. And you have a lot of race fans in this area. I told somebody recently, I said, ‘Racing here is like a second religion.’ They really, really love it.”—Bruton Smith (June 13, 2009)

When Jerry Carroll, the man who turned cornfields into a racetrack in the foothills of Gallatin County Kentucky, failed in every which way—including suing NASCAR and the France family—to get a Cup date at his track, he turned to Bruton Smith, Chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc., to save him.

Smith purchased Kentucky from Carroll and promised fans in the Bluegrass State that NASCAR’s big stars would one day drive around the track. It was the same promise Carroll made in 1999, but this message had some backing to it. Smith actually could make it happen, whereas Carroll just wished it would.

“With the belief that we have a market and we were building in the right place, yes I would do it again with that in mind. I believe we had the right market, I believe we had the right track, and I believe we did everything right,” Carroll told Bob Pockrass of SceneDaily.com late in 2009. “But in retrospect of understanding the difficulty of getting a race, I would not do it again.

A panoramic view of Kentucky during the June 1st test at the track

“If you’re an entrepreneurial person, you never want to try to win something on merits and doing it real good and realizing later on that you never had a chance. We never, ever had a chance. Call us a little bit naïve when we got in, but we’re risk takers. That’s what makes this world go round.”

And in the NASCAR world, if it’s not the France family that makes the world go around, it’s certainly Bruton Smith.

Earlier this week Smith lambasted the Kentucky government for the horrible conditions of the stretch of I-71 that leads into his newest track. He even went so far as to say I-71 is, “the worst interstate highway that I have ever driven on in my life.”

May I remind you that Bruton Smith is 84 years old. He knows bad highways when he sees them.

His son, Marcus Smith, who holds the title of president and chief operating officer of SMI, showed up to the June 1st Goodyear tire test at Kentucky and proclaimed the same message that his father would have given had the elder Smith made it to Sparta that afternoon.

Marcus Smith (left) and Greg Biffle talk during a break in the Goodyear tire test at Kentucky on June 1st

“You can’t go to a manual somewhere, you can’t go to a class and figure out how to put on a party for 80,000 people. It just doesn’t happen. We haven’t written a book yet but maybe we should,” said Marcus Smith.

“When you put on an event this big, it’s bigger than the Super Bowl, it’s bigger than the Olympics even. And what we do in one place is really unlike anything else that happens in the world,” he added.

Bruton Smith even told Ken Broo of Cincinnati’s WLWT-Channel 5 that the residents of Kentucky don’t know what’s about to happen to them.

Race fans in Cincinnati who have traveled to other races in such places as Daytona, Indianapolis, Bristol and Talladega know and understand. But the average person in Cincinnati may not understand the passion race fans have for this sport.

“When you have a race it’s not just an event. It’s not just ‘When does the green flag drop?’ You really need to know when the whole weekend starts because it’s more than anything else, a festival,” Marcus Smith noted. “It’s an entire weekend plus for fans that come in from all over the country to enjoy this inaugural weekend here at Kentucky Speedway. And that’s what makes it a special thing because it’s so much more than a race.”

Greg Biffle, who won the inaugural Camping World (nee Craftsman) Truck Series race at Kentucky said the facility is “impressive.”

“Well the facility has always been very impressive, from the open, when they started it. It’s neat to see it coming to life with the added grandstand and all the other things going up around it,” Biffle said.

There’s no doubt that the party will be hopping in two weeks at Kentucky Speedway. It’s a triple-header weekend for NASCAR’s three biggest series and I’ll be there to cover it all both here and at FOX19.com. Keep checking back as the countdown roars toward raceday in Kentucky.

Martin tested at Kentucky but did not talk

I must apologize for all you fans of Mark Martin that looked forward to hearing what the 52-year-old Batesville, Ark., native had to say about running laps around Kentucky Speedway during Wednesday’s Goodyear tire test. I’m as disappointed as you are.

Every time I’ve heard Mark Martin speak he has dropped a nugget of wisdom that has made me re-consider some portion of my life. I was robbed of that chance on Wednesday afternoon.

I’m not here to spread the blame, but according to a Kentucky Speedway official, Goodyear cut the amount of time drivers had for a lunch break down to half an hour from the originally scheduled hour. In the originally scheduled hour Mark, along with Joey Logano and Greg Biffle, were all scheduled to meet with the media for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Biffle and Logano were able to talk, but Martin couldn’t. And while I loved Biffle and Logano’s takes on the speedway in Sparta, everyone and anyone who has read the blog knows I was most looking forward to seeing the man I’ve called my childhood idol and role model, speak about Kentucky.

Logano talks about Kentucky, a place he's never "lost" at. "I'm undefeated here," he said on Wednesday

Goodyear already made me sit through a race where it was too unsafe to run more than ten laps on the tires they brought to the racetrack, and now they robbed me of a chance to ask Mark Martin some questions about Kentucky Speedway.

Am I miffed? Only a little.

However, I was lucky that I had the opportunity to even see the tire test. Goodyear is very secretive with the tests and they don’t normally allow any media coverage of the tests. With this being the first-ever Cup race in Kentucky, Goodyear officials allowed the drivers to meet with the media in the press conference room of the media center and also allowed photographers (still and video guys) to take photos and video of the test from the grandstands.

The bight green GoDaddy.com car zips around Kentucky Speedway on Wednesday

Since Kentucky’s grandstands are under construction, no fans were allowed in the facility, but fans were able to gather outside of turn three for a small glimpse of the test.

When we were working on pieces for the news I was lucky enough to get a photo of Mark Martin driving through turn three at Kentucky

So while I didn’t get to hear from Mark Martin, I was lucky enough to hear Joey Logano say he can’t dance, and Greg Biffle banter back and forth with Marcus Smith about that very big TV that was just installed at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was entertaining, no doubt.

Marcus Smith (left) and Greg Biffle chat about Kentucky Speedway. Smith is the son of Bruton Smith, owner of Kentucky Speedway

It just wasn’t Mark Martin.

I think I’ll get over it though. In a few weeks no one will be able to stop me from listening to Mark Martin speak about his No. 5 Quaker State Chevy. And that will make me happy once again.

These are my people

When Brian Giesenschlag and I interviewed some fans about the tire test yesterday for the FOX19 newscast, Greg Biffle revved up his engine as he rolled into turn three.

“If that doesn’t get your blood pumping,” the man said, “then I don’t know what will.”

These are my people.

When people want to know what it is about NASCAR races that hooks me I tell them three things: sights, sounds and smells. Forty-three flashes of different colors fly by at amazing speeds. If I get that smell of rubber and exhaust it truly does get my heart racing.

The folks that Brian and I talked to outside turn three said all the same things.

These people really are my people.

People always give me the same old, same old responses about NASCAR. “What’s so fun about watching cars go in circles?” My selling point is always the same.

“You’ve gotta go to one, just to experience it.”

Marcus Smith, president of Speedway Motorsports Inc., and son of Bruton Smith who now owns Kentucky Speedway, said that these events are so much more than just a race.

“You can’t go to a manual somewhere, you can’t go to a class and figure out how to put on a party for 80,000 people,” Smith said on Wednesday at his dad’s newest palace. “It just doesn’t happen. We haven’t written a book yet but maybe we should.”

Think of it, How to put on a NASCAR weekend by O. Bruton Smith and friends. I’d buy it. Wouldn’t you love to know the inner details of how to throw the world’s biggest party?

“When you put on an event this big, it’s bigger than the Super Bowl, it’s bigger than the Olympics even. And what we do in one place is really unlike anything else that happens in the world,” Smith said.

One of the couples we talked to said the best part about the experience was the fact that when you’re camping at a track you get to meet so many different people.

Ask my dad about it, he’d corroborate every story I’ve told here about our experiences at the Brickyard 400. Two years ago while we set up our grill my dad noticed we forgot matches. Can’t grill hamburgers without lighting a match, right?

The folks next to us not only offered to help us by giving us matches, they told us to keep the entire box. They had three in reserve.

That wasn’t the end of the interaction though. They chatted with my dad and I about where we were from and what we loved the most about NASCAR. When they found out I was working for a TV station they told me all about how they loved watching the station.

Those are my people.

“When you have a race it’s not just an event,” said Smith. “It’s not just ‘When does the green flag drop?’ You really need to know when the whole weekend starts because it’s more than anything else, a festival.

“It’s an entire weekend plus for fans that come in from all over the country to enjoy this inaugural weekend here at Kentucky Speedway. And that’s what makes it a special thing because it’s so much more than a race.”

And if you’ve never been to a race, I hope I’ve sold you on it. Trust me, you’ve got to go to just one and experience what a festival it is. It’s fun. I guarantee it.