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“I'd like a lot of racing events, but at the same time I'd like the stands to be full for those events,” he says. “And one of my concerns is that if you have too many races and you don't have a local core fan base that wants to come out frequently, you are going to dilute the success of every race. So I think what we'll find is fewer major racing events, but that will allow us to focus on those more thoroughly and allow the fans to experience a super event at each one.”
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There is a lot of truth to this, I think. It's the challenge of putting a brand new race track in a place with practically zero motorsports fan base (Austin). Most tracks around the country have been around forever, have a storied history, and hence people are used to going there for less popular events like WEC. Other than those places, the only new big tracks that are built are for NASCAR (like TMS or Kentucky). And those tracks bring in the huge numbers because NASCAR promotes itself like crazy around the country, and most of the drivers and cars are American. The tracks themselves don't need to create a fanbase.
That said, it is pretty arrogant to think that you can run a motorsports facility without management who has any experience running that kind of thing. If it were just their money (which I know it technically is for the track), then I'd have no problem with that... they can do whatever they want. But receiving so much state money, it's tougher to swallow the fact that they are basically betting that they know better than everyone else how to run a racetrack. Seems like the state shouldn't be involved in such a —. But hey, they didn't start the METF, they just figured out a way to milk it to an extreme.
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