NASCAR, Dover prepare to race again
By Dave Rodman and Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
September 18, 2001
12:16 PM EDT (1616 GMT)
DOVER, Del. -- The NASCAR Winston Cup and Busch Grand National series, along with Dover Downs International Speedway, are plowing ahead and adjusting on the fly for the 600 miles of stock car racing scheduled this Saturday and Sunday.
Dover is a high-banked concrete one-mile oval surrounded in football stadium style by more than 125,000 seats. Track officials have announced plans to heighten its security levels for this weekend's races -- the first NASCAR events to be held since the weekend before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, as the entire country makes adjustments to its daily routine, the Dover area has had to adapt to the presence of this weekend's events. The races have a major economic impact on the area, but the community is having to balance that with the proximity of Dover Air Force Base and its role in the United States' military buildup in the aftermath of last week's attacks.
Dover, a major base for C5 transport planes, is a center of activity during military operations. However, several Air Force reserves who were contacted said the base has little in the way of itinerant billeting that would be necessary to house the personnel who have been "called up."
It appears that rooms booked by Winston Cup and Busch series officials and fans are not in jeopardy, one hotel manager said.
"We aren't taking any rooms for the military, because once they get in we're finding that they're not leaving," said Monica Anderson, manager of the Comfort Inn of Dover, located a couple miles south of the facility. "We won't be taking any rooms for the military until after the NASCAR race. We're sold out for next weekend, definitely.
"They (military) want all the rooms they can have. Everything we have available they're willing to take. Once NASCAR leaves, the military will take over our hotel."
As many as 200 private aircraft are used by the NASCAR community to fly its personnel to its various venues. At Dover, these typically would use the Civil Air Terminal that is located at the Air Force Base and operated by the Delaware River & Bay Authority.
"This year, there will be no civilian air traffic at the Air Force Base, for obvious reasons," said Dick Kelley, director of airport marketing for the DRBA. Kelley pointed out the DRBA has two other facilities, Delaware Air Park in Cheswold and a joint use military base in Newcastle, Del., that could easily handle all the traffic anticipated during the NASCAR weekend.
The Cheswold strip, located about five miles north of the speedway, has a newly paved 3,582-foot strip that can hold an airplane up to the size of a King Air, but no jets. DRBA airports director Rocco Tomanelli said Monday afternoon that Prior Permission Requests, or PPRs, from 20 NASCAR participant airplanes had been received, exhausting that facility's ramp space.
At Newcastle Airport, located about 40 miles north of the track on U.S. Route 1, the DRBA has three Fixed Base Operations, or FBOs, with rental car and van service, catering, shuttle busses and helicopter shuttles available to the track.
Kelley said Roger Penske has a hangar at the Newcastle facility and that DuPont, sponsor of Winston Cup point leader Jeff Gordon's No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, also has a corporate aviation base there.
According to Kelley, the Newcastle facility has two 7,000-foot runways and can accommodate planes up to the size of a Boeing 747.
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