Track in Washington makes sense financially

On Nov. 1, 1993, Roger Penske met with officials of Kaiser Ventures, Inc. in Detroit to discuss building California Speedway.

It was the first step toward bringing major-league auto racing back to southern California after the failed experiment that was Ontario Motor Speedway. And despite the initial optimism that the meeting engendered, there was plenty of road left to hoe once the decision was made to build the 2-mile oval track.

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Greg Biffle

There is a lot of controversy regarding the construction of a new racetrack in Bremerton, Washington with many voicing their thoughts. From driver and Washington native Greg Biffle, to legend Richard Petty, to representatives from the state, everyone has an opinion.

• Biffle wants supporters in Washington to speak up
• Rep. Seaquist opposes ISC track deal, not NASCAR
• Petty, Biffle talk with Wash. lawmakers about racetrack

After that meeting, Penske and Kaiser had to wait nearly five months to make the announcement they were going to build California, and when they did, the first of many obstacles crept up: remediation of the land the speedway was going to sit on.

That's where the folks in Washington State find themselves right now: at the first of the hurdles Penske and Kaiser Ventures had to negotiate through to get a new superspeedway built.

It wasn't until April 26, 1995 that the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors approved the construction project, and another six months passed before the California EPA Department of Toxic Substances Control approved Kaiser's remediation of the property, which was the site of an old Kaiser coke plant.

Coke is the raw material that keeps steel mills, like the one that sits across from the front gate at California, running smoothly. It was the environmental impact of the old plant that caused such difficulty in the first place in getting the ground prepared and the site ready to be worked.

It was June of 1997 before cars actually raced at California Speedway. The winner of the inaugural event was Ken Schrader, and ever since, California Speedway has been a staple of NASCAR's commitment to the West Coast motorsports scene.

International Speedway Corp. purchased Penske Speedways in 1999, and California Speedway changed hands to its current owners.

In 2006, it was announced that California Speedway brought $220 million to the local economy.

The difference between Penske's building of California Speedway and ISC's proposed $368 million track in Bremerton, Wash. is one of perception on the one hand and execution on the other.

Penske Speedways consisted of Michigan International Speedway and Pennsylvania International Raceway in Nazareth before building California. It later added partial ownership of North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham before merging with ISC.

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.