Marcus Smith: “Nobody likes change and nobody likes things to stay the same.”
Over the weekend, NASCAR hosted their annual All-Star Race. No points were on the line but the winner took home a giant check for $1,000,000.
In this case, Ryan Blaney took the win. The finish was controversial from multiple angles as a caution was thrown just 300 feet before the finish line.
Blaney took his window net down, thinking he won the race. He was able to halfway install the net and confirmed the victory in overtime.
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The All-Star Race is a unique format that features just 24 cars instead of the traditional 40 cars. With half the field in place, there’s an option to take this race to a short track, similar to the LA Coliseum which made it’s debut at the start of the season.
The president of Speedway Motorsports was asked if the All-Star race could be moved to a venue that currently doesn’t host a Cup race.
Marcus Smith comments
“I don’t know,” Marcus Smith told Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.
“We had it in Charlotte for a number of years, and did it in Bristol in 2020 when we couldn’t have it in North Carolina. Then, we moved it to Texas for the last couple of years.”
“This event, we had more people buying tickets than we did last year. We had increases in tickets and camping. It was a lot of fun for a lot of people in the southwest region of the United States.”
“We’re always looking to make it bigger and better. When we had it in Charlotte, we had some detractors who would always say, ‘Why is in it Charlotte’ or ‘It’s just a warm-up event.’ We move it and people say, ‘Let’s put it back in Charlotte.’ “
“One thing I’ve found is, nobody likes change and nobody likes anything to stay the same. It’s one of those things that you can’t make everyone happy.”
“I learned a few years ago when we put in the speedway TV in Charlotte, which was one of the biggest things we’ve done for fans at the track and we still had people complain about it.”
“We’ve got a huge team that works to make everyone happy, but there’s some people out there who like to complain more than anything. We really take our job seriously at putting on a phenomenal, memorable event every single weekend.”
Smith added, “If you look at all the things our team at Texas did to deliver an amazing fan experience — I think if you talk at the fans that were there, they had a great time. I saw thousands and thousands of them having a great time.”
NASCAR All-Star Race Results: May 22, 2022 (Texas Motor Speedway)
