One longtime employee of a top NASCAR team repeatedly called the empty seats at Chicagoland Speedway last weekend "depressing" and admitted something needs to be done about it, while stressing that he didn't want his name used.

Fans have been lighting up e-mail inboxes and were quick to voice themselves all about town, anytime they encountered someone who had anything at all to do with NASCAR and the races being run last weekend at the facility in Joliet, Ill., on the far outskirts of Chicago.

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We are going to take a hard look at it. ... I just think with the economy, it has put pressure on the facility -- but even more pressure on the fans.

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CRAIG RUST, Chicagoland

Now, Craig Rust, the new track president at Chicagoland, seems ready to change the way the joint goes about its business of selling tickets to race fans.

What has fans up in arms in the unique Midwestern market is that the track, as it has since it opened in 2001, refuses to sell single-day tickets to events such as last Saturday's LifeLock.com 400 Sprint Cup race. Instead, it requires anyone who wants to attend the Cup race -- or any other event -- to buy a Track Pack that also includes tickets to the Nationwide Series race, the Camping World Truck Series race and an ARCA ReMax event, in addition to Indy Lights and IndyCar races.

That may help explain why the grandstands were 20,000 or more empty seats short of being full for the Cup race. And Chicagoland is not one of those larger, arguably overbuilt facilities that are struggling to fill their seats for other Cup events. Its grandstand seating capacity is listed at 75,000.

Rust, who came on board at Chicagoland only June 15 after running Watkins Glen International for eight years, admitted that the policy appears to have alienated some fans and that it likely needs to be changed.

"We are going to analyze it. We are going to take a hard look at it. It may have worked in the early going with this track. I just think with the economy, it has put pressure on the facility -- but even more pressure on the fans. I mean, it's tough when you're asking people to buy two of something," Rust said.

"There is a really strong market for NASCAR here, and I want to make sure we're filling up that grandstand for our Cup racing. So we're going to take a hard look at it. Once we do the analysis, we'll make a decision and let everybody know."

Rust said he envisions Chicagoland always offering the Track Pack, which essentially is a season ticket.

"I do want to say there is a very strong value in the Track Pack. You get the Nationwide race, the Sprint Cup race, the Camping World [Truck] Series, the IRL ... when you really break it down, there is a lot of value there," he said. "I think probably if we did something with it, we would still offer a season-ticket model to the fans first -- so the fans who do want to purchase that, they get a little bit of a better value and maybe some good seats. But we'll come out with a way, if we do something, that it's fair to the fans who have been supporting us for eight years."

Eddie Gossage, who has been president of Texas Motor Speedway since it opened in 1997, said he believes that Rust is the right man for the job to get people back in the seats that used to be a hot ticket when Chicagoland first opened in 2001.

Gossage also said that it might help if Rust is given time to turn it around at the facility that is owned by International Speedway Corp., the rival to the Speedway Motorsports Inc. group that owns the track Gossage operates.

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Whatever your desire, whatever your constraints on your wallet, we have something for you.

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EDDIE GOSSAGE, Texas

"Craig Rust is a good man," Gossage said. "He's a smart guy and he's been around this business for a good while. But he's the third manager of that speedway in its existence and it's only been there what, eight or nine years?

"I've been here since before we bought the property. I know our fans. I know them by name. I know what they want; I know what they like. And if you listen to them, they'll tell you what they want and they'll tell you they'll be happy to buy it."

At Texas, for example, fans have several different options. They can buy a Permanent Seat License and a season ticket, or they can buy individual tickets to the races of their choice -- including IRL, Cup, Truck and other events.

"We've always had a healthy season-ticket program. But the rest are sold on a race-by-race basis. With your season ticket, you get a lot of perks -- including paying 20 percent less per ticket, so you're paying substantially less," said Gossage, whose season-ticket sales have been as high as 65,000 and now hover at about 50,000. "So there are a bunch of perks you can get with a season ticket, but we've never required that you buy them. You can buy tickets one at a time. We've always done that, and it's worked exceptionally well and been a key to our success."

Texas Motor Speedway has a grandstand seating capacity of 138,170 -- and recently took out 11,000 seats along the backstretch to convert that space into lucrative sites for motorcoach homes where fans can watch races in style literally from their own front doors. Gossage said the demand for those rental spaces so far is outstripping supply, and that the revenue being generated is more than he could have hoped for by regularly selling out the 11,000 seats he had removed.

"We're no longer the new thing. We've been here 13 seasons now," Gossage said. "In some ways it's easier than when you were brand new, and in some ways it's not.

"It's tough in this economy. You've got to be more responsive than ever. We built this place here in Texas on choice. You can buy a $20 reserved seat ticket to the Cup race, or you can buy a $1 million condominium, or you can buy anything in between. Whatever your desire, whatever your constraints on your wallet, we have something for you."

Meanwhile, it appears Rust must rebuild trust with the Chicagoland fan base and their initially rabid appetite for live NASCAR events.

"I think that as Craig gets more and more comfortable and more familiar with his fans, he'll learn what works for them. Because what works at one place does not work at another place," Gossage said. "I know in our company, we do things distinctly different from one race track to another -- and it's up to the manager of that race track to figure out what works best for their speedway. We're held accountable and responsible, but each one of us does it completely, completely different."

Rust insisted he is ready for the challenge that awaits him.

"I'm hitting the ground running, but I think I can bring a fresh set of eyes here and we've got a good group already on the ground," Rust said. "So we'll go with it and try to continue the growth of this place in whatever ways we determine are the best course for us to take."