Yahoo Autos Butts Will Be In Seats for Rolex 24, Daytona 500
Daytona International Speedway has no real “offseason”
Speedway will host IMSA, NASCAR season opening races with limited fans
Daytona 500 will be just the start of a busy few months for track, and its staff
The last time NASCAR raced was in November last year. When the checkered flag fell at Phoenix Raceway and Chase Elliott was crowned the 2020 NASCAR Cup champion, those in the industry breathed a big sigh of relief. Despite the challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic NASCAR had done would some thought was impossible, completing its original schedule of 83 races among its top 3 touring series after returning to the track on May 17.
While the rest of the sport was able to step back as NASCAR began its offseason, some in the industry were still moving ahead. For them, there is no down time. Chief among them is Daytona International Speedway. A track which had quite a busy 2020.
“There really isn’t an offseason for us,” Daytona president Chip Wile said this past week. “You know starting in January with the Roar before the Rolex 24 all the way through December you think what we did even after the Coke Zero Sugar 400 from August 28th through December31st. We had a ton of activity out here.”
“We had obviously Magic of Lights from the week before Thanksgiving all the way through the first of the year,” he added. “We have one of Americas biggest car shows the Turkey Rod Run down here over Thanksgiving. Almost every weekend we had track rentals so car clubs, NASCAR racing experience a number of different folks who come out and use the track, so we stay busy 320 days a year with something going on out at the racetrack.”
Daytona will host not just the IMSA Rolex 24 IMSAs season opener in a few short days, but NASCAR’s season opening Daytona 500 in just a few short weeks. With the pandemic still raging, many sports leagues are still not permitting fans. Florida is different however, allowing limited fans at sporting events meaning there will be butts in the seats at Daytona and Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“To be able to host fans at so many different events over the course of the next 60 days. I think that does change the dynamic of the event, right?” Wile said. “So you’ve seen NHL Playoff games and Stanley Cup finals and NBA Finals all happening with no fans in the stands and for us to be able to welcome back fans safely to the Daytona International Speedway to Homestead Miami Speedway, not just for the Cup events, but for all the events, is a huge accomplishment and I think that’s something where we have the opportunity to differentiate ourselves from the other sports properties.
“Hey, listen not having a hundred one thousand people here for the Daytona 500 certainly hurts us all; we want that, that’s why we get up every day and do what we do, because we love putting on events for fans to come enjoy. But I know under the current environment, this is the best alternative and (we’re) just thankful that we’re having an opportunity to put on the Great American race in front of fans.”
Last year was a challenge for many, and Daytona and NASCAR were no different. Before the pandemic struck, International Speedway Corporation which ran many of the tracks, and NASCAR merged. That merger was completed late in 2019. In January operations were streamlined and many employees who worked at the once ISC owned tracks lost their jobs. According to Wile however, that story has a happy ending.
“If you look, we actually have more employees that are focused on the Daytona 500,” he said. “Before, we had 130 employees that were solely focused on the events that we hosted here at the World Center of Racing. And now we have an entire new company that is behind what we’re doing and have a hand in making sure that the 63rd running of the Daytona 500 goes off the way we all want and expect.
“The nice thing is we have a number of new teammates that have been at legacy NASCAR for a long time that are now part of the day-to-day operation and putting on the Daytona 500. So that’s encouraging and it actually has made it more fun. You know for us to be able to also have folks from Homestead-Miami Speedway supporting us folks from Talladega Superspeedway supporting us; we’ve actually had folks here from Darlington Raceway and Richmond Raceway, Martinsville Speedway over the last three or four weeks helping us get the facility ready and make sure all the safer barriers are locked and loaded, doing some track maintenance work. So, it truly has taken everybody in the company to get us here. But I think that makes us stronger.”
Daytona showed its strength last season when it hosted the first NASCAR Cup race on its famed road course. That didn’t happen overnight and was something the track prepared for early on.
