These days, the area around Kansas Speedway is a construction site. Outside the tunnel entrance, pieces of blue steel form the framework of what will eventually become a new, 18,500-seat stadium for the region's professional soccer team. The area outside of Turn 2 is a sprawling, dirty mess of land clearing and grading, the first tangible signs of the casino complex that's expected to loom over the race track by 2012, and helped deliver the Kansas City venue a second NASCAR weekend beginning next season.

While all this building isn't track-related -- the soccer stadium isn't on speedway property -- it's emblematic of the growth in what was once kind of a wasteland at the intersection of Interstates 70 and 435. "This used to be a housing development, and a bad part of town," said Kansas native Clint Bowyer, who once raced at Lakeside Speedway, a nearby dirt track. "Now this is the best part of town."

A second date is something almost every track wants but only a few can have, and it carries with it equal degrees of prestige and pressure.

Now it's a commercial powerhouse, with shops and restaurants and hotels and soon to be three sports stadiums, the kind of place that very well might have flourished on its own even if the race track hadn't been there to give it life and nurture it along. Every year, it seems, they're building something else in what's rapidly become the retail center of a city locals refer to as "KCK." And next year comes perhaps the biggest addition yet -- a second Sprint Cup race at the expense of Auto Club Speedway in Southern California, which in 2011 will retain a single event in early spring.

For Kansas Speedway, it's a defining moment. A second date is something almost every track wants but only a few can have, and it carries with it equal degrees of prestige and pressure. Tracks that can pull off two successful dates are a rare breed, given that it usually takes a perfect combination of geography, weather, and on-track action to make it work. Tracks with underperforming events can get dragged down by their one bad race, to the point where those final years before it's moved elsewhere can feel like a deathwatch. No speedway exemplifies that quandary more than the 2-mile oval in Fontana, Calif., which despite its necessary role in continuing NASCAR's long history in Southern California, has become known almost solely as a place that can't sell tickets.

But beginning next year the onus shifts, and it's Kansas that will fall squarely under the microscope, its every race crowd scrutinized and compared to what a second event might draw somewhere else. In a few years, track president Pat Warren may very well face the same, uncomfortable questions that Auto Club Speedway president Gillian Zucker has faced recently. Kansas has a history of drawing good crowds and is clearly a favorite of parent company International Speedway Corp., but in NASCAR as in the stock market, past performance is no indication of future success. Still, there are some indications that Kansas may be able to succeed where the California track failed.

Let's be honest -- despite the massive population base in Southern California, Auto Club Speedway has some inherent issues working against it that no marketing plan or track president can control. It was built in the middle of a desolate industrial area, it was expanded too rapidly, and it features a relatively flat layout that race fans have long derided. In terms of sheer location, Kansas has a huge advantage, given the mini-city that has sprung up around it. Think it's silly that a Panera Bread or an Old Navy within walking distance of a race track can make a difference? Tell that to all the race fans, industry types, and even one driver -- the bill of his cap pulled low -- enjoying the retail area around Kansas Speedway last Saturday afternoon. Not everyone wants to spend their race weekend drinking beer in a tent.

There's a reason newer facilities in most other sports are located in downtown areas; fans want something to do before and after the events, and businesses want the traffic that those events provide. Clearly, you can't plop a race track down in the middle of a city. But Kansas has done the next best thing, and built a downtown around the race track. ISC constructed the facility hand-in-hand with Wyandotte County -- even hiring its first president, Jeff Boerger, from the region's development council -- and the symbiotic relationship between the sport and the city is evident the moment you exit the interstate. The speedway could disappear tomorrow, and the area would likely still thrive. It's not unlike the situation at Charlotte, where down the street from the race track is a huge outlet mall that's become the top tourist attraction in North Carolina. The proximity isn't a coincidence.

Now they're in the early stages of building a casino and hotel at the Kansas track that will cement the area's reputation as a year-round attraction. Of course, if you're trying to pull in race spectators, such development alone won't work, particularly on the back side of an economic recession that's stunted attendance at Cup events. Monday, Kansas made a smart but overdue move, announcing that it will allow the purchase of single-race tickets beginning in 2011. The track had sold season ticket packages, something that seriously rankled fans who didn't want to pay for an IndyCar event just to see Dale Earnhardt Jr. compete. You can't strong-arm your fan base when you're trying to sell out two Cup Series events each year.

Of course, drawing crowds has always been one of Kansas' strengths, a fact aided greatly by the fact that the speedway has resisted the urge to expand beyond all sense of proportion. With a grandstand seating capacity of 81,687, it's big, but not too big. The crowd for last Sunday's race wasn't a sellout, but it was close, and within the confines of the Kansas track, it looked good on television. In a larger, more overbuilt facility, it would have looked like a disappointment. With a sensible seating capacity, you're keeping ticket demand at a relatively high level; by scrapping the season ticket plan, you're widening the pool of people who might potentially be able to buy them. It helps that in Kansas City, races get plenty of attention from local media compared to other major-league markets where they're drowned out by all the clutter.

And that, perhaps more than anything else, illustrates the difference between NASCAR in Kansas City and NASCAR in greater Los Angeles and why, despite the sizeable population difference -- 15 million people -- one may work as a two-race destination where another did not. Kansas City is the kind of place where an apple picking festival can still make the local news, where there's a palpable sense of civic pride, where the professional football and baseball teams have dedicated corps of support despite years of ineptitude on the field. Kansas City is a big city with the heart of a small town, a place where people love their local brands of beer and barbecue, a juxtaposition of skyscrapers and prairie grass that's a little urban and a little rural all at the same time.

It's the kind of place where the sport should be able to find a niche, even if the commercial area around Kansas Speedway had never been built. Kansas City is that rare big city where a NASCAR race coming to town is still a big deal, just as it is in Martinsville or Darlington, something that can't be said of every metro market the circuit visits. It's also the kind of NASCAR destination where the prospect of a second race should be greeted not with the usual, inherent skepticism, but with hope.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

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