NASCAR oval being studied

Track developer considers two sites in Adams County

Jim Benton, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 14, 2007 at midnight

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AURORA - A Florida-based racetrack developer took the first step Tuesday to bring a NASCAR Nextel Cup race to the Denver -area.

But it was a baby step.

International Speedway Corp., which owns and/or operates 13 motor sports facilities, including the track that will play host to NASCAR's Daytona 500 on Sunday, announced plans to explore a public-private partnership that could lead to the construction of a track in Adams County.

ISC representatives emphasized the project is in the early evaluation phase and no decisions have been made regarding location, potential cost or how the public-private partnership might be structured if the facility were constructed.

"Today is the starting point. We are here to explore the opportunities," said Kathy Milthorpe, managing director of ISC, parent company of Rocky Mountain Speedway Corp., which would oversee a facility if one were built. "We have had conversations with officials about our intentions to explore this market, but no proposals have been made, no specific discussions about what this might look like have been made at all."

No timetable has been set for the project, but a prospective track would seat about 75,000. Mil-thorpe estimated most tracks of this nature cost $350 million to $400 million.

Two parcels of land in Adams County are being evaluated:

• A 1,300-acre site in Aurora off Interstate 70 near the Watkins exit, south of Front Range Airport. The site is part of the proposed TransPort transportation and cargo hub on land controlled by the Schuck Corp. and Minneapolis-based Varde Partners Inc.

• A 1,300-acre site in Commerce City between the 88th Avenue overpass and 96th Avenue exit on E-470, extending 1 mile west to Tower Road and 1 mile east to Piccadilly Road.

The site is believed to be held by a group that includes Alex G. Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers.

"At this time, we have no specific plans on where the racetrack would be located," Milthorpe said. "It's way too early in the process. What we do know is that we will spend some time evaluating each site in the months to come. I would also like to point out we might consider other sites as they are presented to us."

International Speedway Corp.'s most recent track, Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., joined the NASCAR circuit in 2001. The 1.5-mile trioval seats almost 82,000.

"What our goal would be is to put the best product on the track, make it as multipurpose as possible, but you're not really held to that it has to be a certain size to be able to do that," said Wes Harris, ISC's senior director of corporate and investor communications.

It's likely a motor sports facility in the Denver area wouldn't come to fruition until after 2011, considering ISC is optimistic about building a track in the Seattle area with a target date of 2011 to start racing.

Even if tracks in Seattle and Denver are built, the next roadblock to overcome would be finding spots on the grinding 36-race Nextel Cup schedule.

"We've talked about it in Seattle and what we are going to have to do there is realign a race in one of our existing tracks," Harris said. "We'd be looking at the same model here.

"We are looking to put a very significant investment into this so we wouldn't be doing that if we didn't feel we could bring the right types of national, high-profile events here. We can't guarantee anything, but we wouldn't be making this investment if we didn't think we couldn't get the right events here."

This will be the third attempt to build a NASCAR track in the Denver area. Penske Racing twice looked into building a track, and the second time, ISC was involved because it had just purchased Penske Racing.

A group calling itself Concerned Residents Against Speedway Havoc (CRASH), funded by the owners of defunct Pikes Peak International Speedway, was instrumental in getting Aurora voters to pass a charter amendment that requires the city to get voters' approval for any financial incentives going to a racetrack.

That amendment still is in force.

"This is a different project," Harris said. "In no way after that did we sour on the Denver market. We always wanted to be in this market. At that time, we were in the middle of trying to build Kansas City and Chicago and also integrating a very large organization in Penske into our company."

What it might be like

Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan., is the newest track in the NASCAR circuit, having opened in 2001.

• Long drive: The track's 1.5 mile trioval equals the size of eight football fields.

• Come on in: The track seats nearly 82,000 fans in the grandstands but eventually will expand to 150,000. Parking for the facility accommodates more than 65,000 vehicles.

• Dirty job: More than 11 million cubic yards of dirt was moved to construct the speedway; enough dirt to fill 1 million dump trucks.

• The Sears Tower in Chicago could be laid end-to-end 45 times to equal the amount of storm sewer pipe used in the speedway's infrastructure.Source: Kansasspeedway.Com

ISC tracks

California Speedway

Chicagoland Speedway

Darlington Raceway

Daytona International Speedway

Homestead-Miami Speedway

Kansas Speedway

Martinsville Speedway

Michigan International Speedway

Phoenix International Raceway

Richmond International Raceway

Route 66 Raceway