NASCAR helps fans pinch pennies

When Joe Gibbs Racing made its appearance on the annual media tour this year, fans at Charlotte Motor Speedway were in for a surprise. A group of 100 fans were there — and were treated to a ride-along with the JGR drivers and a chance to get a signed copy of team owner Joe Gibbs’ new book.

For the race fans, it was yet another sign of how much tracks value their relationship and patronage — even more so now that the economy has taken a turn for the worse.

It should be noted that NASCAR tracks have always been fan-friendly. The Charlotte facility has labored to keep some ticket prices lower but has ramped up the cost-cutting measures in recent years with initiatives such as working with hotels to keep prices lower and eliminate minimum stays. It is that type of cost control that tracks across the country are attempting to keep the fan experience on a high note and demand for race tickets at a steady pace.

These days, almost every NASCAR track site features a flashing ad detailing the latest ticket bonanza for fans.

At Atlanta, there’s $39 tickets for the upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup Kobalt 500 race weekend. Texas Motor Speedway boasts a series of fan-friendly events that kick off well before the race weekend begins. These promotional events include a Daytona 500 party at a local facility where the track will have a show car and Speedway Children’s Charities will be involved.

These are just samples of the increased fan awareness permeating NASCAR tracks these days. Promoters recognize that the downturn in the economy has left fans without jobs or with less disposable income than in the past. So track staffs are working diligently to make sure that the fans who attend their races get as much value out of their dollar as possible.

With programs ranging from discounted tickets to enhanced amenities to working with local hotels to cut rates, everyone is working toward a common goal: Making the race experience worth the money and effort. That extends to NASCAR itself, with rule changes aimed at creating better racing at the track, which is clearly the reason the fans come anyway.

NASCAR fans are a unique lot, though.

They trek to tracks days ahead of the main event, some living in campers or even tents on lots surrounding the tracks. They hover over fires in cold temperatures, don ponchos to ward off rain showers and trade stories with fellow fans they’ve often just met. The NASCAR experience doesn’t just encompass the three or four-hour race.

Tracks recognize the demands on fans and are working to make the experience as smooth and inexpensive as possible. How can fans take advantage of it? By visiting track sites, watching for ticket specials and helping with ratings on where to stay. And by taking advantage of all the other amenities that are now available week to week.

That starts with this week’s season-opening Daytona 500.

Daytona International Speedway President Robin Braig and his fellow International Speedway Corp. track operators are actively involved in the fight to save fans money. For Daytona, that includes ticket discounts, reduced pricing at the track, enhanced fan amenities and working with local hoteliers to keep prices down.

In the past at most tracks, hotel rates climbed on race weekends and multiple-night minimum stays were firmly in place. Now, hotels are working more closely with tracks and some tracks have ways to help fans find a better priced hotel.

Ticket prices have also fallen.

“We dropped prices down to $55 for the Daytona 500; we dropped the price of a Coke or Budweiser or T-shirt or a hat,” Braig says. “We are promoting heavily our free parking, and we know people are using it because during the July race we had the most people we’ve ever had park in our free parking.”

At the same time, the track that already features a FanZone has increased the fan experience by bringing those in the superstretch onto the track to sign the walls. Attractions including kids games and an appearance by Michael Waltrip are in place with the proper ticket.

Braig says that all professional sports and entertainment venues are facing the same challenges this year. So NASCAR and the tracks are committed to making even more of a difference for fans. One way that tracks are handling the issue is by making their venues more intimate. Some tracks are removing some of their seats and creating even more comfortable viewing for the fans.

“A lot of sports facilities across the country are making their facilities smaller, more intimate and their tickets more desirable,” Braig says.

Charlotte has taken that a step further, changing the metal seats long apparent on the frontstretch for wider, more comfortable stadium seats — with season ticket holders getting their names on the back of them while paying the same price for their spot.

Bruton Smith, Chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc. and its 12 tracks, says that with the economy turning around, tracks will sell more tickets. Still, he says that operators and promoters must simply do more to reach the same attendance levels as in the past — and that might not be a bad thing.

“You work harder today than you did maybe two years ago, and I think that is a requirement really for the success of racing today, is work harder,” he says.

He also sees rule changes that could help promoters reach their goals — like make winning a race worth more, which could create more finishes that resemble those of the All-Star race where the winner takes the big purse and there are no points at stake.

Still, he sees the importance of adding to the fans’ experience however possible.

“We’re offering a lot of things here that we’ve never had before, and we hope that will certainly entice the fans to come,” he says as he sits at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Here again, we still are concerned about the economy, jobs. If you don’t have a job, you don’t have the money to buy tickets, you’re not going to show up.”

Overall, everyone has the same goal in mind: To make the experience so desirable that fans will want to return to the next possible race.

So fans should be able to find more diversity in terms of things to do at the track for the same amount of money this year — and to use deals like NASCAR’s Racepoints, where purchases count toward rewards, to get even more bang for their buck.

“(Tracks) have been cutting ticket prices, working on ticketing packages,” NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France says. “They have been zeroed in in their race markets with the hotels, restaurants, to get discounts to make things cheaper, because in certain places, North Carolina being one certainly, but Michigan, California, Florida have been very hard hit.

“I've been impressed with the tracks and what the net of that is, they are making it much easier and much more affordable at a time when that's really, really important to our race fans, and I want to thank them all for reacting so fastly to do that.”

And tracks like Charlotte and Bristol Motor Speedway and all others will continue to increase the fans’ experience with each visit.

Charlotte’s reach goes beyond ticket holders, with the track inviting fan club members to some driver announcements in recent weeks. Bristol is also working on making the fan experience at the tight, little short track even better with the 2009 addition — and continuation this year — of the Food City race night fan extravaganza at the track itself. So fans no longer have to voyage to another area to get the experience of visiting with drivers and watching them participate in fun events.

Like some others, the track has added more races to a ticket for the same value.

As Bristol’s Vice President of Public Affairs Kevin Triplett says, in a sentiment expressed often across the sport, the goal is simple: “Give them more for their money.”