Bruton Smith is looking to expand his race-track empire.

And this time, he is looking to royalty overseas to do it -- or rather, royalty first came looking for him.

Qatar is located in the Persian Gulf, off the coast of Saudi Arabia.

Smith, chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc., is in negotiations to build three race tracks in the Middle Eastern country of Qatar. It is not clear yet if Smith and SMI would assist in ownership and/or operation of the facilities, or simply construct them and hand over the keys to the Emir of Qatar and his royal family, but Smith said Friday that he hopes to have all the details worked out soon, perhaps within another week.

Smith said he was approached about construction of the tracks by the Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani -- and not the other way around. The Emir was in the international news recently for reportedly offering 400 million euros to purchase the former Elysee Palace Hotel in Paris.

The Emir is said to be a great fan of all forms of auto racing, and several of his representatives met late last week with Smith and his associates to put the finishing touches on an agreement to have SMI build the three tracks in Qatar. That didn't quite come to pass, but Smith said the two parties are moving closer toward finalizing everything so construction can begin.

"We had a great, great meeting. We'll be talking again this coming week," said Smith, speaking from Texas Motor Speedway, one of eight tracks SMI owns where NASCAR events are run. "We've already designed the speedways, and they like the design and all. But they've formed a committee and now it's got to go to a committee and all that kind of stuff, so it's not where I would like it.

"I thought we would be a little bit further down the road with it than we are right now, but we're working on it diligently. We'll get there."

Qatar (pronounced KA-tar) is a small, oil- and gas-rich nation located on the Qatari peninsula, just 100 miles north into the Persian Gulf from Saudi Arabia. The entire country's land mass is smaller than the state of Massachusetts.

It is a wealthy country, with the International Monetary Fund stating last year it had the highest GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita in the world. With a modest population estimated at 1.4 million by the United Nations in 2009, there are questions about who would fill the seats at the race tracks. By comparison, the population of the greater metropolitan area of Charlotte, N.C., where many NASCAR race teams are located, is estimated at between 1.7 million and 1.8 million.

But Smith said the preliminary plan is to have each track seat no more than 40,000 and that he has been informed the Emir has a unique plan in mind for filling them.

Looking overseas

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"They said no more than 40,000 [at each track]. They don't want a lot of seats," Smith said. "This is kind of strange to us -- to you and I -- but they said they probably would give all the tickets away. I said, 'You're not doing this to make money?' They said, 'Oh, no, no. We're doing this for our people.' I said, 'You don't want to make money? Well, OK, whatever.'

"They don't need to make money. They make all the money they need with natural gas, and oil, I guess."

One source speculated that if the tracks are built, they likely would all be part of the same complex -- much in the same way as the 1,300-acre, SMI-owned Las Vegas Motor Speedway compound includes not only the 1.5-mile oval major NASCAR events are run on, but also a .375-mile paved oval called The Bullring, a half-mile clay oval called The Dirt Track, a 2.4-mile road course and even a quarter-mile drag strip.

Smith said only that details are still being worked out and that the preliminary plans call for the tracks to be "within the same vicinity" along a coastal area in Qatar.

"We're incorporating the waterfront there and everything else," Smith said. "It will be a great showcase for the country. I think we'll get it done. I just wish we had more to report to you at this time."

Smith said this venture is in no way connected to the recent interest shown by George Gillett, majority owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, in eventually helping develop a Middle Eastern stock-car series. But it does underscore the fact that NASCAR-types are beginning to think globally -- specifically, Middle Eastern -- when it comes to selling their sport and building future fan bases.

"It's one of only three places in the world right now that have any money," conceded Humpy Wheeler, former president of Lowe's Motor Speedway who now runs his motorsports consulting business, The Wheeler Company. Wheeler said he had not heard that Smith, his former boss at LMS, was looking to build in Qatar -- but did say that Qatar was one of the few countries in the world right now with the kind of money it would take to spend on such an ambitious project. He said Russia and "some Pacific Rim countries" were the only others currently possessing the wherewithal to spend that kind of money.

"Everyone else is still in the grip of the global economic downturn," Wheeler said.

Gillett inadvertently caused a minor uproar last month when it was announced that Richard Petty Motorsports had entered into a "commercial collaboration" agreement with F6, a leading Saudi Arabia-based sports management firm.

The Saudi firm, founded and led by Saudi Arabian Prince Faisal bin Fahad bin Abdullah Al Saud, will work with Gillett's team "to explore business opportunities" in soccer, stock-car racing and interactive media in Saudi Arabia. A few days after the announcement, prior to a race at Kansas Speedway, Gillett explained further that he believes the Middle East is ripe for the development of a stock-car racing series.

Gillett said then that he originally was talking with his Saudi contacts about possibly building academies for young soccer players in the Middle East and North Africa when the subject of stock-car racing came up.

"In the midst of those conversations, the light went on and I said, 'My goodness, what an opportunity this might be if we could create a series in the Middle East for stock cars,'" Gillett said.

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We're incorporating the waterfront there and everything else. It will be a great showcase for the country.

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-- BRUTON SMITH

"That's what happened. We have had extended conversations now about developing a race series. There are several extraordinarily good road tracks there. They have identified 14 sites -- or more -- in the Middle East where they could put an oval track or two, or 14. So that was the genesis of the conversation."

Gillett went on the stress then that the conversations were very preliminary in nature, as were any minor discussions that may have taken place about Saudi investors eventually purchasing a minority stake in RPM.

Wheeler said he doesn't know if there are enough race fans in the Middle East to sustain a series, or even a handful of stock-car events at new tracks.

"I just wonder where all the people would come from," Wheeler said. "The questions are: Where's the culture of it? And are there enough people to support it there? Will tourists flock there in enough numbers to make it work? That's doubtful because it's so far away from everything. It's a 14-hour plane ride from the United States -- and that's if you're lucky.

"So they've got the money. But do they have the people?"

However, there is some evidence to the contrary. Earlier this month, the city of Abu Dhabi in neighboring Saudi Arabia held its first Formula One race at a new 3.4-mile road course that cost a staggering $1 billion. The event sold out quickly and was attended by 50,000 spectators, who were treated to a pre-race concert by none other than legendary rock band Aerosmith -- perhaps a sign of the times that other American forms of entertainment, including stock-car racing, are primed to be embraced by the Middle East.

By contrast, Wheeler estimated that the most expensive track constructed in the United States in the last two decades is Texas Motor Speedway, where NASCAR's three national touring series are racing this weekend. It cost roughly $350 million to build and opened in 1997, originally seating almost 160,000. Since then, some 21,000 seats have been removed and its seating capacity is listed at 138,170.

Smith stressed that negotiations remain ongoing and that the deal to build the tracks in Qatar is not yet completed. But he said he does believe it is close to becoming reality.

"I certainly don't look at it as a done deal," Smith said. "Hopefully in another week, we'll be able to say it's done."