The $400M modernization of the Daytona Int'l Speedway "is mind-boggling," and to see the completed project for yesterday's Daytona 500 "was breathtaking," according Scott Kent of the Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL. What "used to look like high school football bleachers on steroids now is a fully fledged modern professional sports stadium." It is "bright, colorful, digitized, more convenient, more comfortable, more inviting ... draw an adjective from a basket of accolades." Kent: "I like to think that Daytona Rising puts the NASCAR fan experience on par with what you get at an NFL or Major League Baseball game. Racing has continually evolved. It was time the Speedway finally caught up" (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 2/21). In N.Y., Peter Kerasotis wrote under the header, "Daytona, A Track That Opened in 1959, No Longer Feels Like An Antique." Fox analyst Jeff Gordon said, “I’m blown away by it.” DIS President Joie Chitwood III said that one of the project’s "biggest challenges in the renovation was how best to facilitate the flow of fans." The new speedway "will accommodate what it did when it opened 57 years ago: 101,500 fans." Chitwood believes that there "will not be a revenue dip," despite the removal of 46,000 seats on the backstretch, and that the "financial difference will be offset by increased and upgraded concessions and food offerings, more and markedly better luxury suites, and, of course, finding creative ways to bring in more corporate sponsorship money" (N.Y. TIMES, 2/21). In Daytona Beach, Godwin Kelly notes the feedback from race fans to date "has all been positive" (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 2/22).
ECONOMIC IMPACT: In Daytona Beach, Ken Willis in a front-page piece notes in the long-run, Daytona Rising "could serve a pivotal purpose of ushering in a new age of motorsports as a profitable vehicle for promoters." Willis: "This isn’t to say the folks at Talladega, Dover, Martinsville, etc., will need to soon upgrade to 4-star amenities in order to remain relevant. But they might" (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 2/22). Also in Daytona Beach, Clayton Park notes the project is "expected to create an immediate lift to the local economy." ISC, which owns the track, anticipates a $20M "boost this year alone" from sponsorship sales, increased attendance, more special events and more ways for the consumer to spend money (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 2/22).
ENERGY EFFICIENT: In Orlando, Marco Santana reported more than 7,000 solar panels have been installed at DIS in an effort by Florida Power & Light "to gather data and share solar energy’s benefits with a huge fanbase." FPL President Eric Silagy said, “The research is great and we’ll get a lot of data. But a lot of the positive is the exposure to hundreds of thousands of fans" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 2/20). DIS is now ranked "in the top five U.S. professional sports facilities for solar installations" (Daytona Beach NEWS-JOURNAL, 2/20).
