Track in Washington makes sense financially (cont'd)

ISC, on the other hand, owns California, Daytona, Talladega, Richmond, Watkins Glen, Darlington, Homestead, Martinsville, Phoenix and Michigan and has built Kansas and partnered with Indianapolis on Chicagoland.

It is in the business of building and running race tracks for NASCAR, Indy Car, Champ Car and various other forms of motorsports. It's also in the business of opening new markets to the sport, which explains the venture into the Pacific Northwest.

It's not that NASCAR hasn't had a footprint in the Northwest for many years. It's just that the tracks were small, and NASCAR's presence was muted. Now, after a couple of failed attempts to crack the Seattle-Tacoma corridor, ISC has focused on Bremerton, which also houses a pretty substantial naval base as well as being close enough to Seattle to draw that market.

You can't really fault ISC for trying to work its way into the area, because there's a sizable population base, a boatload of investment capital and the fact that the area has never had a big motorsports facility. On the flip side, there are environmentalist groups that make those in California seem tame in comparison, a healthy dose of mistrust concerning public funding of private enterprise and a loud group of folks who consider NASCAR fans a latter-day version of the Hell's Angels.

Public/private financing of sporting stadiums has been around for years, mainly in stick-and-ball sports, but ISC got together with the local governments in and around Kansas City to build Kansas Speedway on that basis. When Penske and Kaiser Ventures built California, they sold stock to finance construction.

The upshot is, ISC is asking for roughly $188 million from the taxpayers of the proposed Washington site and would pony up the remainder plus any overruns. On a project of this size, there are bound to be overruns, so it comes through as a wash financially.

Given that California Speedway has an economic impact of better than $220 million on San Bernardino County, it's a pretty even deal compared to what King County shelled out for the new home of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks (a reported $595 million; the Seahawks paid $25 million, according to sources).

The bottom line is, risk is balanced by reward. Penske saw potential in a plot of land that was covered in part by an abandoned coke plant. He knew the market and the impact, and made it work. ISC, in the same vein, sees potential in the Pacific Northwest and is moving to benefit both itself and the local community.

It's a no-brainer from a business standpoint.