With no crowd allowed for NASCAR, Kentucky Speedway seeks ways to keep its fans engaged
When the green flag drops on Sunday’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway, it will be the 10th NASCAR Cup Series race run in Sparta.
Do not expect any pomp and circumstance to commemorate the anniversary.
“We had some plans (to celebrate 10 Cup races) if we had fans,” Kentucky Speedway General Manager Mark Simendinger said last week. “Since we don’t (have fans), there’s no point in doing anything special for that.”
Due to the effort to contain the coronavirus, the Kentucky Speedway grandstands will be empty this week as five NASCAR-sanctioned races are run at the track.
In last year’s Quaker State 400, Kurt Busch edged his younger brother Kyle Busch in a paint-trading battle to the line in what was the most scintillating finish in Kentucky Speedway’s Cup Series history.
This year, the battle against COVID-19 will rob the Speedway of any chance to parlay momentum from last year’s dramatic ending to boost attendance. Instead, Kentucky Speedway officials have been running their own frenetic race to create new ways for NASCAR enthusiasts to engage with the races they cannot attend.
“We have to kind of reinvent what our event is going to look like and execute that,” Simendinger said last month. “I was on a call today where we went through a complete check list of all virtual assets that we have to create and deliver.”
For home-bound fans, Kentucky Speedway has created new virtual options that are designed to supplement Fox Sports 1’s television coverage of this week’s races:
▪ Fans can download the commemorative 10th-anniversary Quaker State 400 race program at kentuckyspeedway.com. Produced by Lexington-based Learfield-IMG College Publishing, the program is already available.
▪ From Kentucky Speedway’s social media channels, its mobile app and its website, one will be able to visit a “Virtual Fan Zone.” Exclusive content and commercial offers from track sponsors will be available there.
▪ Via Instagram Live, various NASCAR drivers will conduct live chats throughout the week. Watch Kentucky Speedway social media feeds for schedule information.
▪ At 6:30 p.m. Saturday on Kentucky Speedway’s Facebook page, fans can watch the NASCAR Cup Series Hauler Parade.
▪ Before Sunday’s Quaker State 400, a “Virtual Happy Hour” will be broadcast at noon (time subject to change) via Kentucky Speedway’s Facebook Live. The Speedway said it will feature “multiple NASCAR personalities” and “surprise driver appearances.”
If you get lucky, you might even get a chance to enter a Zoom meeting this week with your favorite NASCAR driver courtesy of various corporate sponsors. “A lot of that is ‘enter to win’ kind of things,” Simendinger said. “These companies are, obviously, really smart about how they do this stuff.”
An empty grandstand does bring some opportunity. Kentucky Speedway officials plan to put signs in areas where fans are normally sitting that will create new television exposure for the track’s race sponsors such as Quaker State and Alsco.
Said Simendinger: “We are going to have the opportunity to place signs in areas that are beneficial to our sponsors that are not available for a normal race.”
This week will feature the first races at Kentucky Speedway since NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from all tracks where it runs. That decision — long overdue — has met with some blow back, especially around last month’s race at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway.
Historically, Simendinger said Confederate symbols have had a smaller presence in fan areas at Kentucky Speedway than at some deep South racetracks.
In 2015, after a self-avowed white supremacist murdered nine African Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church, NASCAR asked its fans to no longer bring the Confederate flag to its tracks.
“When we had (that request in 2015) before on a voluntary basis, we had a few people who came and flew Confederate flags, but very few,” Simendinger said. “We have not had much of an issue on that thing. I don’t think (the ban) would have been much of an issue for us (if fans were attending this week’s races).”
Once it was announced that fans would not be allowed for this year’s NASCAR racing at Kentucky Speedway, the track offered ticket holders the choice of getting their money back or rolling it over for 2021’s races with an additional 20 percent credit one can use next year at the track.
“We’ve had a remarkable number of patrons that have just applied the money they had down for tickets this year to next year,” Simendinger said. “We are tracking really high on that, which leads me to believe the policies (around Confederate symbols) that are taking place now are ones that people accept.”
For Kentucky Speedway, the challenge this week is to keep the ticket-buying public engaged with NASCAR racing in a year when fans are banned from the stands.
“Everything we’re doing this week,” Simendinger said, “is about letting our fans know how much we want them to come back in 2021.”
NASCAR at Kentucky Speedway
Thursday: NASCAR Xfinity Series Shady Rays 200, 8 p.m.
Friday: NASCAR Xfinity Series Alsco 300, 8 p.m.
Saturday: ARCA Series General Tire 150, 2:30 p.m.
Saturday: NASCAR Truck Series Buckle Up In Your Truck 225, 6 p.m.
Sunday, July 12: NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400, 2:30 p.m.
TV: All races on FS1
This story was originally published July 6, 2020 at 9:53 AM.
