Kansas Speedway ready to make its biggest gamble

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- You can almost hear the words coming from Bill France Jr.'s mouth. "Boerger," the late NASCAR chairman once told Jeff Boerger, the president of Kansas Speedway, "it's not a matter of if, but when." He was referring specifically to the addition of lights to the 1.5-mile racetrack. But given recent events, he could have been talking about something else much bigger.

Kansas is going after a second Sprint Cup race weekend, and pursuing it with all the vigor of a big cat chasing down an injured gazelle. Just like those lights France mentioned so many years ago, it seems only a matter of time. Most track operators pursue a second date as diplomatically as a treaty negotiator, going out of their way to state their case without offending other facilities. Kansas is coming in with elbows flying, hurt feelings be damned. There are other tracks that are underperforming, they want a second date by 2011, and if you don't like it, well, feel free to take a long walk out on the prairie.

"We're in discussion right now with ISC to come up with a plan as far as realignment," Boerger said, referring to parent company International Speedway Corp., which owns Kansas and 11 other Sprint Cup venues. "What track is underperforming, what's best for our shareholders, [what race] we could potentially move to Kansas Speedway. So those discussions have started."

Look alive, Atlanta, California, Martinsville and Pocono -- you've just been put on notice. If you don't think Kansas is going to get its second date, then you've been standing too close to the Sunoco pumps. In many ways this is a model facility for NASCAR and ISC, an oasis of big-time racing in a region without another Sprint Cup track for miles, proof of how a major-league market can embrace the sport. Kansas has been an unqualified success since it first opened seven years ago, smartly equipped with a modest seating capacity of 81,697 and an adjacent retail and entertainment area that hums with activity. The whole complex, Boerger says, draws about 10 million people annually. And it's about to get even busier.

One week ago, the Kansas Lottery and Gaming Facility Review Board approved -- by a single vote -- the speedway's bid to build a $705 million, 300-room Hard Rock hotel and casino outside Turn 2. An artist's rendering on display this weekend in the track's media center shows the stylized entrance, a giant guitar rising from the center of a fire-ringed fountain. Boerger expects the casino to draw another eight million people annually to the speedway area.

The casino is projected to open in 2011 -- conveniently the same year by which the track hopes to have secured its second date. Support for that second date evidently extends beyond Kansas City. "Lesa France Kennedy was up in front of the [casino] review board and committed to petitioning NASCAR for a second date," Boerger said. Lesa France Kennedy is president of ISC. "I'm confident in the process. It's just a matter of finding which track is underperforming that we can bring here. I'm very confident it's going to happen." (Continued)