Perhaps no major metropolitan area in America has a more dazzling array of sports stadiums than the one called the Valley of the Sun. The pro football team in Phoenix plays in a two-year-old architectural wonder with a natural grass field that's rolled outside when not in use. The hockey team plays in a state-of-the-art suburban facility built in 2003, the basketball team in a 13-year-old downtown arena that's undergone a renovation and more than stood the test of time. The decade-old baseball park features a retractable roof, a $14 million, 136-foot-wide high-definition scoreboard, and concessions offered by familiar restaurants such as TGI Friday's and Gordon Biersch.

And then there's Phoenix International Raceway, the iconic desert mile nestled at the base of the Estrella Mountains outside of town. While it's renowned for producing great racing, the 44-year-old facility lacks most of the comforts of the other, newer stadiums in the greater Phoenix market. The vast majority of its 76,812 grandstand seats are simple aluminum bleachers. With the exception of suites spanning the first two turns and a tunnel that replaced a pedestrian bridge, this rather austere facility still looks very much like it did decades ago. In a city famous for its sports stadiums, Phoenix's racetrack seems stuck in time.

And in NASCAR, that's not unusual. Even the most modern of racetracks struggle to match the amenities offered by the newer, flashier, and often more publicly-funded sports stadiums opening in their backyards. Things like stadium-style seating, a wider array of concession options, and television screens in concourse areas -- all standard for years in most other pro sports facilities -- are only now becoming more common in NASCAR. While today's NBA or NFL fan is almost guaranteed a comfortable seat, a modern replay screen, and a clean bathroom, the race fan sometimes has to put up with aluminum bleachers, grainy Sprint Vision, and a Port-O-Let.

Prelude to the Dream

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How did it get that way? Experts in the industry point to a variety of reasons. It happened because racetracks are big places, many times larger than the facilities that house stick-and-ball teams, and draw massive crowds that make catering to the individual fan a challenge. It happened because racetracks, often due to fears over noise and traffic, haven't received the same level of public support that other sports facilities have. It happened because tracks only have a handful of major revenue-producing events each year. And it happened because many racetracks in use today are many decades old, and were behind from the very beginning.

"I remember old-time promoters, guys who started like I did promoting dirt racetracks 40 or 50 years ago thinking, we've done everything we can to run these people off," said Humpy Wheeler, until last week the president at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "The facilities are awful, the bathrooms are lousy, the food is terrible. Yet they keep coming back and increasing. What in the world would happen if we ever got enough money to fix these places up? The result is what happened. We've finally been able to fix them up. We even have a few speedways that would rival the better NFL stadiums. But we still have a way to go to get there, because we were so far behind starting off."

The gains thus far are incremental -- better choice and quality of concession food at Las Vegas, chair-back seats at Darlington, concourse televisions at California, a retail area around Kansas. But with so many tracks vying for capital improvement dollars from two major speedway companies, Speedway Motorsports Inc. and International Speedway Corp., such improvements are often spotty. For many of NASCAR's older facilities to rival the amenities offered by a modern NBA or NFL arena, they'd have to be gutted or demolished altogether. Hard as it may try, Martinsville will never be mistaken for the Staples Center.

The real step forward in fan comfort at NASCAR tracks is yet to come. It's the sport's next generation of speedways, facilities in hoped-for places like Denver and Seattle and New York, that promise to most closely rival the amenities offered by stadiums in other sports. Because of its relative youth, NASCAR lagged behind more established sports leagues in terms of national growth and gravitation toward major cities. The same thing is happening in the facilities game. Football broke free of bland, multi-purpose arenas. Basketball began building suite-heavy palaces. Baseball moved toward more intimate and more fan-friendly ballparks. Experts believe NASCAR will make a similar move, with the next wave of racetracks setting new standards within the industry.

"The next speedway that will be built that runs Cup races will have all the bells and whistles of an NFL stadium," said Wheeler, who ran the Charlotte track for 33 years. "I may not be around, but we'll see a roof go over it before it's all over with."

Size matters

Darlington Raceway

New seating at Darlington shows bleachers could be a thing of the past at NASCAR tracks nationwide.

In his office at Texas Motor Speedway, president Eddie Gossage has a picture of his racetrack with eight Texas Stadiums -- the home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys -- superimposed over the infield. The graphic, put together by track staff, illustrates just how large the Fort Worth facility is. And it makes clear the challenges presented in operating a facility so much larger than those in other sports.

"People think of racing as a sport and think, OK, why isn't this sport equivalent to all the other sports in terms of facilities? People need to understand the scale," said Wes Jones, an architect with AI Design Group of Charlotte, which works with Bruton Smith-run SMI, the parent company of Texas and seven other NASCAR tracks.

"It's an apple and an orange. You can't go out and obtain 800, 900, 1,200 acres to put a speedway in, the same way you can go to the inner city and get 10 acres to do a Bobcats Arena. So when you inherit a New Hampshire Speedway, and you start thinking about it, and you're up in the northeastern corridor and you need to find 1,000 acres, that's very difficult to do. It's like you're going out to build an airport. That's why you see a lot of renovation and a lot of improvement to what's already there, because the cost of going out and building one from scratch is huge compared to one of these stick-and-ball arenas."

Sheer size is the primary reason why spectator amenities in NASCAR often lag behind other sports, which operate out of smaller venues that make it easier to provide a very high level of individual service. Although the series was born out of short tracks, it was larger speedways -- particularly 1.5-mile tri-ovals -- that helped take it nationwide. And with so few race events available to each facility, tracks needed a lot of seats to make money. Nothing said big-time more than a wide, fast tri-oval surrounded by 150,000 seats.

"In the golden age of the '60s, particularly during the so-called factory wars, people wanted big speedways," Wheeler said. "They wanted mile, mile-and-a-half, two-mile speedways -- the bigger the better. You had trouble selling tickets to anything less than half a mile."

Over time those speedways have come a long way; the most ornate feature everything from a condominium tower and meeting space to a spa and restaurant. But with so many people needing to be accommodated, service can only go so far. Basketball arenas with 30 suites can provide a level of individual service that a racetrack with 100 suites simply cannot.

"The expense to build these things are exponentially higher than [other sports facilities]," Jones said. "You know what SMI just paid for New Hampshire Motor Speedway [$340 million]. And you look at what Bobcats Arena was built for, $250 million? So they paid more for that [racetrack] than you can build a brand new, state-of-the-art facility for basketball, and the facility they bought is what, 20, 30 years old? To bring that up to speed with what we're talking about as far as quality level, it would have to essentially be completely redone one piece at a time, or wholesale."

But change is coming. The next generation of NASCAR speedway will almost certainly be smaller than what we see today, a downsizing similar to what NBA and Major League Baseball facilities have undergone the last two decades. It can be terribly difficult to sell 160,000 seats during sluggish economic times. The most reliable sellouts come in places with more modest seating capacities, like Kansas (81,687) and Darlington (62,000). And like other sports arenas, NASCAR tracks are gradually moving toward wider seats -- 21 inches compared to 18. And wider seats mean fewer seats.

"In general, if you're not looking at that wider seat, you're in trouble," Wheeler said. "You look at NFL stadiums, Cleveland used to have 82,000 seats, they've got 65,000 now. Basketball arenas, they were building 24,000-seat arenas, now you've got 18,000 seats. It's kind of come full circle. Where we have an advantage is, our playing fields are big. We have a mile, a mile-and-a-half, two miles, whatever it is. So we have a lot of places we can put people compared to a basketball arena or football stadium. We've always been able to put the guy that owns the plant in the nice seat, and the guy who works at the plant, we have a place for him, too. A lot of sports can't do that anymore."

In NASCAR, downsizing is a relative thing. "You're probably going to see stadiums where you're seating 90,000 people instead of 160,000 people," Jones said. "So it's smaller, but it's still enormous by the standards of other sports. You still have huge, Woodstock-like crowds that you're trying to get in and out."

You'll likely see other changes, too. Jones says you won't see backstretch seating anymore, because fans want to see pit road and the finish line. New tracks will feature most of the seating between the fourth and first turns, which is where the ticket demand is. And the age of the 1.5-mile tri-oval may be ending as well. Of the new tracks being proposed, most are 1 mile or less in circumference. Smaller tracks not only often provide better action, but also a more personal level of service.

"We built Texas not realizing that other mile-and-a-half tracks were right on the horizon," said Wes Harris, SMI's development director. "The future for the experience is more intense, something more like a Bristol or a Richmond. I think that's on the horizon for us in Bruton's vision. His next track, if he had a choice, would certainly not be a cookie-cutter mile-and-a-half. That provides the variety for both the racers and the fans, in the venues and choices they have to go to. But certainly anything we do in the future will have more fan interaction."

The next big thing

Autostock

The Neon Garage at Las Vegas Motor Speedway gives fans an opportunity to be in the garage without actually being "in" it.

The ideas sprouted at about the same time, and came to fruition about a year apart. The Fan Deck at Daytona International Speedway was such a hit that track officials quickly doubled the capacity. The Neon Garage at Las Vegas Motor Speedway became so popular that tickets sold out and a waiting list formed. When Darlington Raceway unveiled the plans for its revamped infield, the centerpiece was a double-decker garage.

Welcome to the next big thing in racetrack design, a garage that lets fans in while keeping them out at the same time. These structures, which provide panoramic views of the racing surface and a glimpse into the stalls where crewmen do their work, have grown into reliable revenue streams at Daytona and Las Vegas. They're the envy of other facilities. And they're almost certain to become standard at the next-generation racetrack, unless something more revolutionary comes along.

"No question," said Andrew Gurtis, ISC's director of operations. "That's pointed at throughout the industry as just a widely successful innovation, and truly what that does is, it brings that intimacy and connectedness with the very core of the sport, which is guys turning wrenches on engines in the garage area, where everybody wants to get to but for safety reasons and capacity reasons, you can't let everyone into. But the more you can bring that experience to the guests and a broader group, the better the sport is going to be in general."

Things have changed in NASCAR. When he first broke into the sport 29 years ago, SMI's Harris said, you sold fans a seat, and maybe a hot dog and a souvenir. Now it's all about the experience in its totality, and the Neon Garage and Fan Deck have proven that fans are willing to pay for a better one. Sure, the race itself will always be the central focus. But as they become more savvy, race fans are proving that they don't mind a little more comfort, a little more attention, and a few more fun things to do at the track.

"At any given track, the circumstances are going to be different," Harris said. "I'm not saying we'd build another Neon Garage exactly like that at all. But to get the fan interaction and the closeness and the overall race-day exposure, whether it's the garage or having an opportunity to try to change a race tire, whatever it is, bring as much of that to the forefront. Because that's what you can't get sitting in an armchair Sunday afternoons watching it on TV."

As Daytona discovered with the Fan Deck, there's a clear market for diversions beyond watching the race. "Years ago, we got to some issues in the garage in terms of traffic and the drivers and teams having a tough time doing their work," said Roger VanDerSnick, ISC's executive vice president. "Doing it right in this form and fashion still allows great access to the garage, but still allows competitors to go out and do their business. I think every track that comes on board in the future will have those things, not to be competitive, but because they offer a tremendous experience for fans, and fans are willing to pay for it, and they want it."

VanDerSnick envisions further breakthroughs. More fiber connectivity within arenas could mean enhanced scoreboards, better ways to present timing and scoring, the ability to order food or check traffic from your seat. The success of the retail community surrounding Kansas Speedway has ISC interested in following that kind of model, which presents dining and shopping options within walking distance of the track.

And then there's the simplest of enhancements: the seat. While most of the newer tracks feature all stadium seating of the kind you'd find in an NBA arena, many older facilities -- including 40-year-old Dover International Speedway, host of Sunday's Sprint Cup event -- still rely on an abundance of aluminum bleachers. Not too long ago, while other sports arenas were upgrading to suites and skyboxes, some NASCAR tracks still had seating areas made of concrete. Phoenix had a temporary wooden grandstand -- the kind you'd find in a high school football stadium -- that wasn't demolished until 2005.

"It's much more difficult to maintain a racetrack," Harris said. "It's not an indoor facility. You are exposed to the elements depending on where you are. You look at a place like Michigan with harsh weather to deal with. There are many limiting factors. You want to say, why didn't we come along like the NBA and have a cushy, comfortable seat? But when you look at a northern facility and exposure to weather, you're greatly limited to an aluminum bench or a concrete bleacher because it was the only thing that was durable that you could maintain. That has gradually changed over time, but it's not easy anywhere."

But going forward, stadium-styled seats with chairbacks -- and maybe even cup holders! -- will be the standard. Lowe's Motor Speedway renovated its frontstretch with 22,000 teal seats bought from the old Charlotte Coliseum replacing what had been bleachers. With the completion of its new Brasington Tower two years ago, Darlington Raceway became a full stadium-seat facility. Like 1.5-mile tri-ovals and 160,000-seat racetracks, the aluminum bleacher is quickly passing out of style.

"If you think about a movie theatre 15 years ago and you compare that to a movie theatre today, there really is no comparison," said Darlington president Chris Browning. "Today's theatres have the nice, high-backed seat, it reclines a bit, you've got the really nice cup holder, you have a little more room in the aisles. It's nothing like it was 15 years ago. I think that's a really good analogy when you're comparing racetracks, too."

Public and private

AP

Darrell Waltrip, Richard Petty and Greg Biffle went to Washington State to try and persuade officials to allow a track to be built to no avail.

The opponents called it "corporate welfare." ISC's plans to build a $386 million racetrack near Bremerton, Wash., called for $180 million in public financing, under an arrangement similar to those used in the construction of new stadiums for Seattle's football and baseball teams. But the plan was assailed by politicians who saw NASCAR only as noise and traffic, and ISC pulled it from the table in April of 2007.

The next generation of NASCAR racetrack promises to be an unparalleled facility, full of amenities and creature comforts that fans in other sports have enjoyed for years. But getting it built hasn't been easy. The Seattle project ended amid duress, even though it was supported by Bremerton's mayor, a U.S. congressman, and Washington's lieutenant governor. Attempts to build a track near Denver have stalled out. And then there's the saga that is New York, where ISC bought a parcel of land on Staten Island, but abandoned the project in October because of widespread local opposition and a lack of political support.

No matter that citizens in metro New York are paying millions to help finance new stadiums for baseball's Mets and Yankees and football's Giants and Jets. Stick-and-ball teams can use the threat of moving to hold cities hostage for new arenas, a large chunk of which are often publicly funded. But these days, proposals for new NASCAR tracks often lead to the series being run out of town.

"You question whether it's a level playing field or not," said ISC's VanDerSnick. "I would say we've continued to focus on this in a big way the last couple of years. We were successful in having some public-private partnerships certainly in Kansas and Chicagoland. But it certainly isn't handled the same way in motorsports as it is in stick-and-ball. Now, we're not crying about that and whining about that. We're going to continue to deliver a great experience for our fans, and we're going to continue to spend anywhere from $80 to $100 million a year in capital to maintain and refurbish our facilities. And as we continue to do more development toward new speedways down the line, we'll definitely be expecting to have a very strong partnership throughout the community."

It's always been a thorn in the side of track executives -- why will communities spend millions of public dollars on new arenas for their football, basketball or baseball teams, yet rarely open the checkbook for NASCAR facilities that sometimes seat twice as much? In 1977, according to Wheeler, Lowe's Motor Speedway received a large loan from what is now Bank of America to build its first modern suites and press box. Speedway companies like ISC, SMI and Dover Downs went public to raise capital for improvements and new construction. Public assistance in NASCAR has been a fairly recent phenomenon, with communities around Kansas City, Kan., and Joliet, Ill., pitching in to help fund those tracks, and Concord, N.C., recently agreeing to $80 million in incentives for Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Of course, Lowe's owner Bruton Smith got that money the same way so many team owners in other sports do -- he threatened to move. But in NASCAR, that's an anomaly. "If it were a stick-and-ball sport, somebody would have torn Darlington down 40 years ago, or threatened to move unless South Carolina built them a new one," VanDerSnick said. "We generally don't do business that way, and we don't want to get in a situation where we have that kind of a relationship."

ISC's recent struggles in Seattle and New York have led to a shift in tactics. No more will the speedway company pick a site and then try to build public support. Now it wants proposals to have broad public backing from the beginning. In trying to woo Seattle, ISC brought Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip in to work the crowds. Not again.

"We're listening and entertaining, but not actively out aggressively searching," VanDerSnick said. "We're going to retool the way we go about market development. We're going to be interested, but the proposals that come to us will have to have broad support in these local communities. We're not going to go on point, necessarily, as much as we have in the past gaining support in all these communities. If somebody really wants us, they want to come to us with a plan that has really great connectivity and really broad support, then we'll look at that."

There's still interest on ISC's part, especially in New York. But after the company's somewhat humbling experiences on Staten Island and elsewhere -- "It's fair to say we've learned the hard way," VanDerSnick admits -- it won't approach those markets the same way again.

"We'll get what appears to be lots of good support community-wise, governmental-wise," VanDerSnick added. "These projects take a long time, there are environmental questions and issues and traffic studies and infrastructure. And by the time you get through some of these things you're in a new election cycle, and if you lose support with where you're at, all of a sudden we're burdened with doing the heavy lifting when really we think we're bringing a wonderful economic generator for the area and a great sport. We think there should be a good demand for that, but what we're going to want when people come to talk to is to have that bit more fully developed before we jump back into that."

Of course, NASCAR isn't alone. Hornets owner George Shinn left Charlotte because the city wouldn't build him a new downtown basketball arena, something the community did do when Robert Johnson brought the Bobcats to town. The SuperSonics are on the brink of leaving Seattle because that city won't build them a new facility, as it did for the Seahawks and Mariners.

"It's harder for everybody today than it's ever been," VanDerSnick said. "We were in our growth spurt in the '80s and '90s, and I would say there's still some stigma attached to the sport in terms of tremendous traffic, noise, not an economic impact or driver, not really a national sport. As we grew rapidly and changed the mind of corporate America as well as consumers and communities, I think you've seen everybody really pull back on private-public partnerships. They're still there, obviously, but they're not like they used to be. They're getting more and more difficult. So what I would say is, we kind of muscled our way to the table at a time when corporations and communities in general were pulling away from these things."

Although SMI officials say they're also keeping an eye on New York, recent purchases of speedways in New Hampshire and Kentucky make it unlikely that the company will build a new facility from the ground up anytime soon. ISC's efforts have been tabled by opposition and red tape. The track of the future, with all its amenities and advancements, will become a reality someday. But no one is quite sure when. Right now, there's only one place to see it -- on the drawing board.