Kentucky Speedway to get Cup race in 2009
Speedway Motorsports Inc. announced Thursday that it has agreed to purchase Kentucky Speedway. The purchase likely won’t be completed for another 90 days.
Until SMI owns the track, it would have a hard time negotiating a sanction agreement for a race or asking for a race to be moved there for next season.
At a news conference Thursday, SMI Chairman Bruton Smith said he expects to have a Cup race at the 1.5-mile oval next season.
“We don’t see any possibility of Kentucky being on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule for 2009 … regardless of ownership," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said Friday afternoon. “There has been no request for realignment in Kentucky. We are well along in the sanctioning process at this stage."
05/23/08 A NASCAR spokesman said Thursday that just because Speedway Motorsports Inc. Chairman and CEO O. Bruton Smith wants a NASCAR Sprint Cup race at his newly acquired Kentucky Speedway is no guarantee he’ll get one – in 2009 or after. Smith announced Thursday that SMI had inked a deal to purchase the speedway, which is located half an hour from Cincinnati, and he expected it would host a Cup race next year. And to think that it might in 2009, may be wishful thinking, according to NASCAR Managing Director of Corporate Communications Ramsey Poston. “There are certainly some hurdles there," Poston said of Smith’s hopes to get a Cup date next season. In the past, NASCAR has refused to grant Kentucky a Cup race, citing, among other factors, its proximity to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway, Chicago Speedway, and Talladega Superspeedway. With the Southeast and Midwest already saturated, NASCAR has said Kentucky holds little appeal for a Cup race. NASCAR traditionally announces its final schedule in mid-summer and by now is deep into negotiating sanctioning agreements with tracks for next year. If SMI wants to move a race to Kentucky next year, it must submit a plan to NASCAR saying where it would be willing to give up a race at one of its other tracks. SPEEDtv
05/22/08 Speedway Motorsports Inc. officials confirmed Thursday afternoon that the company has bought Kentucky Speedway and that the track hopes to host a NASCAR Sprint Cup race, possibly as early as 2009.
SMI purchased the 1.5-mile oval in Sparta, Ky., that opened in 2000 and has been in the center of an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and SMI rival International Speedway Corp. since 2005.
Bruton Smith, SMI chairman and CEO, said that his group has nothing to do with the lawsuit and that he cannot comment on it. He added that he would not disclose the purchase price at the request of the track. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2008, according to a news release.