TMS Unveils Motorcoach Suites Project, Lowers Some Tix Prices

Gossage Unveils Plans For New Motorcoach Suites At TMS To Be Called "Burnout Alley"

Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) yesterday unveiled a $2M capital improvement project that will see the upper half of the backstretch area become a series of motorcoach suites called "Burnout Alley." The 74 suites will sell for $15,000 each for a race season (two NASCAR weekends and one IRL). The project, which has an estimated completion date of early- to mid-March, will eliminate about 21,022 seats on the backstretch, reducing the track's overall capacity to approximately 138,100 (TMS). In Dallas, Richard Durrett notes the motorcoach suites "will include full-service hookups for water, electric and live race feeds." TMS also "will lower backstretch ticket prices by at least" 45%.  TMS President Eddie Gossage: "We took out seats we weren't selling, added an area that we've had demand for and lowered the prices for tickets for fans because we don't want to lose them in this tough economy." Durrett notes tickets to the first two rows on the backstretch, 1,090 seats, went on sale this morning for $20 each for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Samsung 500 in April. The rest of the backstretch seating "will be priced at $40." The same price "will be available at a later date" for the Sprint Cup Dickies 500 in November. Previously, tickets on the backstretch ranged from $42-78. The estimated attendance at this year's Dickies 500 on November 2 was 171,000, the "fewest number of fans for any Cup race at TMS and a drop of 6.8[%] from last year's event" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 12/2). Including the infield crowd, Gossage "estimates attendance at TMS will top out between 185,000 and 190,000" (FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 12/2).

FAST MONEY: ESPN.com's Terry Blount wrote, "While its RV plan isn't something for the financially strapped fan, TMS has formulated a strategy to make up for the seats it no longer has and wasn't selling anyway." The 15,000 former backstretch seats "sold for $50 each for a maximum of $750,000 in revenue; by comparison, 74 RV boxes at $15,000 each would total $1.1[M]." Meanwhile, Gossage said the 1,090 backstretch seats in the first two rows are the "most inexpensive seats we have ever offered. Due to the price, we are limiting it to four per person. It's a tremendous deal for families trying to stretch their dollars in 2009" (ESPN.com, 12/1).