Hlas column: Iowa track has raced into NASCAR's good graces

Confession: I once was a non-believer.

When I heard several years ago that there was talk of building a superspeedway in central Iowa with the hope of one day holding major NASCAR races there, I scoffed.

There were more than enough established tracks in the U.S., I thought. No way would a speedway in lightly populated Iowa move up the NASCAR pecking order, let alone get on it. It sounded like a future white elephant.

Oh me of little faith.

Iowa Speedway got built in Newton, just off Interstate 80. The first full season of racing was 2007. The IndyCar Series made its Iowa debut that year, and will hold its fifth-annual Iowa Corn Indy 250 next month.

NASCAR's Nationwide Series, its “Class AAA” of stock car racing behind Sprint Cup events, made its Iowa premiere in 2009 with a crowd of 56,087. Last year's Nationwide event at the track drew 55,988. In a slumping economy and with auto racing attendance down 15 to 20 percent from its peak years, NASCAR had its eyes opened wide by the results at Newton.

So, NASCAR offered the track a second Nationwide race this year. Nashville is the only other non-Cup site to have two Nationwide races this year.

“In our mind, it's a huge step forward,” said Rusty Wallace, the former Cup star driver who designed the track and is the facility's frontman. “If we don't do it, we'll never know what kind of growth we can have.”

All of the track's 30,000 permanent seats have been sold for Sunday's John Deere Dealers 250, which will be telecast live by ABC. Standing-room tickets are available at $35. Wallace expects about 40,000 fans for this race, which was added to the one the summer Nationwide event the track already had. Temporary seating has been used at that one in each of its first two years, and Wallace said another crowd in the 55,000-range is likely for that one on Aug. 6.

That isn't the way it is across the NASCAR landscape. The crowd at the Nationwide race at Dover, Del., last Saturday was 28,000. The next day, Dover had 82,000 for its Sprint Cup event. That sounds like a lot, but in 2008 the same race drew a capacity 133,000. (For a chart at recent Sprint Cup attendance trends, click here)

So NASCAR is looking at Iowa as a fresh success story. The obvious question is, can this track one day host a Sprint Cup race?

A few weeks ago, NASCAR President Mike Helton told the Des Moines Register it would not happen in 2012 and was “very unlikely” the year after that. But things change.

“The Sprint Cup will not go past its current 36 races,” Wallace said. “It's topped out. It would take us partnering with or purchasing another operation that currently has a Cup date. We're not working toward that right now, but we'd love to have it one of these days. I'm a very impatient son of a gun, so I'm hoping it can happen in the next two years.”

ESPN.com auto racing senior writer Ed Hinton wrote that it's “a mistake by NASCAR” that Iowa Speedway doesn't have a Cup race yet.

Changes would have to be made to accommodate the big boys, but it isn't as if the speedway hasn't been adaptable since it opened. The parking flow in and out of the track, for instance, has been improved dramatically since the facility opened.

“We'd have to put in more permanent seats,” Wallace said, “about 70,000 from our current 30,000. We'd have to put in a little bit more work with our road systems. But the garages, the pit road, the infrastructure - that wouldn't have to be changed.”

The track has gotten rave reviews from drivers who like the multi-groove banking that makes passing more manageable. It's the only 7/8ths-mile track on the NASCAR circuit, something that distinguishes itself from the many 1.5-mile tracks the organization uses, including those near Chicago and Kansas City that opened 10 years ago.

Chicagoland Speedway had an announced crowd of 67,500 for its Sprint Cup race last year. If Iowa Speedway can draw 55,000 for its summer Nationwide races, you'd have to think its attendance for a Cup race would be about as many people as it could fit onto its grounds.