Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 31, 1993 TAG: 9305310047
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Maybe it was the late-afternoon green flag that made a difference. The guys behind the wheels were treating the Memorial Day weekend's annual superspeedway race of attrition like a Saturday night sprint at a quarter-mile track.
This was supposed to be Winston Cup, not The Winston.
The 600 start was moved back to 4:30 to avoid a television collision with the Indianapolis 500. With the race scheduled to finish at night for the first time, several guys were trying to win it before they got 5-o'clock shadow.
They also were bringing a Charlotte Motor Speedway crowd of more than 162,000 to its feet, with 12 lead changes among five drivers in the first 62 laps. That's OK. Those people had spent most of the previous five hours sitting in their own cars.
Long before the Winston Cup stars were smoking the straightaways at 185 mph, many of the paying customers had been traveling 1.85 mph trying to reach the track on U.S. 29.
Dale Earnhardt was penalized twice by NASCAR before he won his second straight 600. Perhaps the only way to keep "Ironhead" from the winner's circle will be to put him in a traffic jam.
It's been obvious for several years that stock-car racing had become a big business, but a first-time 600 visitor was struck by the magnitude of this show. Those who have seen it before say it is only brightened by turning on the lights.
The Coca-Cola 600 perennially is viewed by the second-largest single-day paid crowd in American sports. There are only two reasons it isn't bigger.
The largest seating capacity in NASCAR - until the Brickyard 400 puts Winston Cup racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 14 months - can't hold more people. The Indy 500 is the other.
Indy has tradition. Charlotte has a race. As long as the 600 is run on the same day, it will keep making left turns in the shadows of not only the 500 in the Hoosier State, but also the Daytona 500.
That is not to say the 600 isn't a spectacle. On Sunday, six hours before the start of the race, traffic was backed up several miles from the track. Lines already had formed at the souvenir trailers across the road from the speedway.
Charlotte may always be on the outside pole compared to Indy, but that doesn't mean the speedway won't be trying to steal the lead. Track owner Bruton Smith is talking about 84,000 seats - as an addition.
Yes, addition. That's about the capacity of Richmond International Raceway. Smith is thinking a 213,000-seat facility, about triple the size of the proposed Charlotte stadium for an NFL expansion franchise.
Smith also owns Atlanta Motor Speedway, and he's also discussing the expansion of the Hampton, Ga., facility, if the state of North Carolina and the city of Concord don't come through with the estimated $3 million to improve the highway system adjacent to the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Smith and Humpy Wheeler, the Charlotte Motor Speedway president and general manager, are about as slick as that oil spot that helped Rick Mast's Skoal Thunderbird into the wall and 60 laps down in the first few minutes of the 600. The expectation here is that the speedway will pave its way to the highways and tunnels desired.
The track operators are very protective of their success. When father-son NFL ownership hopefuls Jerry and Mark Richardson unveiled their stadium plans during The Winston's prerace hype days, speedway executives complained loudly to the NFL wannabes.
Not only do the Charlotte track operators protect their turf. The intent seems to be to make this another Indy, right down to the adjacent Speedway Golf Club, for which one of the founding developers is Washington Redskins quarterback and NASCAR team investor Mark Rypien. Groundbreaking is scheduled next month.
The 600 has become bigger than Richard Petty's grin. Appropriately, it has grown fast. It will only get bigger and brighter, and perhaps, in TV terms, completely a prime-time event.
And if you're looking for a hotel room, try Rockingham or North Wilkesboro.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB