Clay Campbell: “I want everyone to know that the sky is not falling.”
Martinsville Speedway is set to get a bit of a makeover. First, the speedway is set to remove a few seats. The seats at the top of Bill France Tower, Turns 3 and 4 will be removed. In addition, the seats above the press box in turns 1-2 will also be removed.
“We’re calling it ‘facility optimization,’” Clay Campbell told the Martinsville Bulletin. “What it boils down to, obviously now we have the opportunity to take some seats out.”
“Attendance is not what it used to be so we can take some seats out and those seats are the highest that we have. So to make it easier on our fans so they don’t have to climb 10 stories to get to seats, they’re the ones we’re taking out.”
“It’s not a lot of seats but at the end of the day it’s going to make the experience better for everyone in that tower because by eliminating those seats people don’t have to walk to get to the top row. It will relieve pressure on our concession stands and our restrooms in that tower, we can only build so many in there. So it’s really a win-win for everybody concerned so that’s the reason we’re taking those out.”
The seats above the press box required 180 stair steps to reach. There wasn’t enough seating up there to justify the costs of an elevator, so one was never installed. At the same time, Campbell admitted those seats should have never been built in the 2000’s. He hinted they were too high.
“I want everyone to know that the sky is not falling,” Campbell stated.
“It’s not uncommon if you look at other professional sports, whether it be baseball, football or whatever, they’re redoing their stadium and that’s what we’re doing here. Just making it a better experience.”
“Really when you come out here you probably won’t even notice the change, it’s so few seats. But I think it’s going to look better, so we’re excited about it.”
Beyond seating, the speedway is currently working on a re-design of their “front door.” A redesign of the front entrance is set to be announced in the coming months. A big portion of that will involve the routing of traffic to and from the speedway.
Martinsville Speedway will complete the project in two phases. The first portion will be completed by the March 25th, 2018 NASCAR Cup Series event. The second portion will be completed by October.
“We’ve spent a lot of money out front to really redo our front door,” Campbell said. “So that’s exciting news. We’re really looking forward to changing the looks to the front entrance of the place. That’s on tap to be done this year.”
In 2017, Martinsville Speedway installed the biggest upgrade at the 1/2 mile speedway in 60 years. They installed LED lights. For the big Late Model race, they hosted it under the lights. That was the first race hosted under the lights in the 60 year history of the Martinsville, VA track.
