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Big push Kansas hopes expansion will help track get second Cup racePosted: Wednesday February 19, 2003 5:44 PMKANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- One way or another, there will be more fans in the seats for Winston Cup action at Kansas Speedway in 2004. The track in Kansas City, Kan., joined by government and civic groups on both sides of the state line, is pushing hard for a second Cup date when NASCAR reshuffles its schedule for 2004. But if a second date doesn't materialize, track president Jeff Boerger said, the two-year-old speedway will expand again after this season. Kansas Speedway added 1,500 seats in the offseason after its second straight sellout year, bringing its capacity to 78,000, and has already sold out its 2003 season-ticket package. "We could go, if the market would let us, to 150,000. We have the infrastructure in place for that," Boerger said Monday. Last week, he and other officials presented the track's case to its parent company, Daytona, Fla.-based International Speedway Corp. ISC is owned by the family of NASCAR owner Bill France. "Who knows when there's going to be another opportunity to get another race?" said Steve Kelly, the Kansas Department of Commerce's director of business development and a member of the "Project Blitz" team trying to land a second race. "When you get the opportunity, you'd better make a run at it." NASCAR's realignment could include moving races between tracks but likely won't involve additional dates. That means one of the circuit's older tracks -- perhaps Darlington Raceway or North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, both of which now have two races a year -- could lose their Cup dates. Atlanta Motor Speedway and Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C., both owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc., have also been mentioned as candidates to have Cup races taken away. Each of those tracks has two Cup dates each year, and Lowe's also hosts the Winston all-star event. But Kansas City isn't the only ISC track looking for a second date, and SMI's Texas Motor Speedway has long argued that NASCAR has never given a second date as promised when the $250 million track opened in 1997. "Within ISC, I would say our competition is probably going to be between Phoenix, California and Chicago," Boerger said. "And you know, Darlington is not just gooing to give us a second date They're going to give us a challenge." The speedway's close relationship with the state, the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., and the city's Board of Public Utilities should give it an edge, Boerger said. "I do believe we have the fan base to sell out a second Cup weekend," he said. "Then we also have that strong public-private partnership, which can assemble a strong incentive package to attract that second weekend." Selling out the track's first two Winston Cup races hasn't been a problem, at least. The season-ticket package at Kansas Speedway, which covers Indy Racing League and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races in July and a full Busch Series/Winston Cup weekend in October, sold out in January -- 45 days earlier than the sellout date in 2001. Tickets for an ARCA event in June are sold separately. The track's success at selling tickets, however, could be offset by Kansas City's perceived "small-market" status. Kansas City is the nation's 33rd-largest television market, according to the 2003 edition of Bacon's TV/Cable Directory. By comparison, Los Angeles is No. 2, Chicago is No. 3, the Dallas-Fort Worth area is No. 7 and Phoenix is No. 16. "I know we're only 33rd, but we're surrounded by top 100 markets and we get a lot of ticket holders from those markets," track spokeswoman Sammie Lukaskiewicz said. "We've got St. Louis at [No.] 22, Oklahoma City at 45, Tulsa [Okla.] at 60, Wichita [Kan.] at 66, Des Moines [Iowa] at 72, Springfield, Missouri, at 73, Omaha [Neb.] at 78 and Cedar Rapids [Iowa] at 88."
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