Local Look: Offseason

Local papers contributing: The Dispatch (Lexington, N.C.), New York Post, Seattle Times, The Tennessean

The deal: Sam Smith of the New York Post says NASCAR promoters hoping to build a huge racetrack on Staten Island say they can manage traffic, but critics wonder if they're just going around in circles.

The 80,000-seat, $550 million stadium would be built in the northwest corner of the borough, between two chronically choked highways and near the notoriously slow two-lane Goethals Bridge.

One of the highways, the three-lane Staten Island Expressway, is a main route for vehicles moving between New Jersey, Brooklyn and Long Island.

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But track builders have no plans to improve highways, other than adding two ramps and toll-plaza capacity. No government transportation agency has stepped in to help.

Racetrack planners instead are banking on a ticketing system that would tie the race-goer into a mode of transportation to the track, mainly ferries and buses from parking lots in New Jersey. Without a mode of transportation identified and paid for prior to race day, most fans wouldn't be allowed in.

Why we care: International Speedway Corp., the NASCAR affiliate building the track, unveiled its traffic plan last month just before closing on its $100 million purchase of a 450-acre industrial lot on the waterfront. It is acquiring another 200 acres nearby for $10 million.

The traffic plan is the key to the project, according to local officials who can kill the project if convinced it will paralyze roadways.

And so far, regional planners and local politicians say the blueprint, while innovative, is lacking.

"It won't work," said City Councilman James Oddo (R-S.I.).

"One traffic accident on the Goethals Bridge, and that would be the end of that as a means to get to the track," said Councilman Michael McMahon (D-S.I.).

The deal: Ben White of The Dispatch says Rusty Wallace, whose only victories at Daytona International Speedway have come with an IROC race in 1989 and the 1998 Budweiser Shootout, is determined to kick off his final season as a driver by winning the sports' biggest, richest and most prestigious race.

Wallace last won at Martinsville in 2004. Credit: Autostock

"I've got one more shot," Wallace said. "I've tried my whole life. I've told my crew when I get back here (to Daytona) I better have the best car I've ever had in my life."

Why we care: Wallace announced his retirement plans last September. He's made 22 starts in what's been dubbed "The Great American Race."

He is winless with eight top-10 finishes, but in 2001, Wallace posted his best finish in the Daytona 500 with a third-place run.

The deal: Emily Heftner of the Seattle Times says a last-gasp fund-raiser to bring NASCAR to Snohomish County in Washington went on even without the cause last week.

But the event organized by business people who had supported plans for a local NASCAR track raised only about $1,200, most of which will be donated to a NASCAR-related charity. Now that the proposal to build a track between Marysville and Arlington has been withdrawn, there isn't much to raise money for.

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Why we care: Representatives from Fans United for NASCAR, or FUN, said they will continue to do what they can to attract Florida speedway developer International Speedway Corp. (ISC) to Washington, even if Snohomish County is out of the running.

They said they'll use the balance of the money they raised to pay for bumper stickers and other items to promote building a track somewhere in the state.

The fundraiser was already planned when local government leaders announced in November that negotiations with ISC had fallen apart. The corporation had offered to pay $50 million of the track's $300 million to $350 million cost, and government officials felt the corporation should pay more.

The deal: Larry Woody of The Tennessean says Darrell Waltrip is considering retirement this season. Again.

Darrell Waltrip

Waltrip, a three-time Cup champion retired from NASCAR's top series after the 2000 season but continued to run an occasional race in the third-tier Craftsman Truck Series. Now Waltrip indicates that too will end.

"I'll run the Martinsville (Va.) spring race ... and more than likely it will be my last race," Waltrip said last week.

Why we care: Waltrip still holds the distinction as the winningest driver in NASCAR's modern era (1972-present), during which time all of his 84 victories came. Second is Dale Earnhardt (76) followed by Jeff Gordon and Cale Yarborough (69 each), Petty (60), Wallace (55) and Allison (55).