Slumping ticket sales force ISC to close grandstand
Remember back to July's running of the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, when the main frontstretch grandstand was unfilled and the backstretch grandstand was only dotted with spectators? DIS officials have solved that problem, though not in a manner they would've preferred, nor envisioned, until very recently.
The 57,000-seat "Superstretch" grandstand, which begins just off Turn 2 and runs about halfway down the backstraight, will be closed for next July's Coke Zero 400. The only grandstand tickets sold will be for the 110,000-seat stands that run the length of the front "dog-leg" from Turn 4 to Turn 1.
"We did the math," DIS track president Robin Braig said Wednesday.
The two large Jumbotron television monitors, which face the backstretch seats during race events, reportedly cost about $200,000 to rent. When Speedway officials included the costs of additional shuttle buses and manpower needed to manage a race-day event, closing those seats became a viable option.
"We're trying to keep the costs down on tickets," said Braig. "When we open the Superstretch, there's everything from concession stands, cleanup crews, parking lots with buses and trams, the two huge Jumbotrons . . . Add up all that for the amount of people who are sitting back there, we just said, 'Hey, let's try to get everybody in the best seats we have, and try to hold costs down, especially since the demand for that area is lower than in past years.'" Daytona Beach News Journal