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Weekend Plans With Kentucky Speedway Exec VP & GM Mark Simendinger: All Systems Go

NASCAR's top three series are at Kentucky Speedway this weekend for racing on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, and track GM MARK SIMENDINGER said his main focus is to make sure "everything goes the way it’s supposed to go." Simendinger: “As long as we’re sticking to the plan, I generally have a pretty routine weekend. But it’s when the plans start getting changed around that things get a lot more exciting.” Simendinger's weekend really started on Wednesday, as the speedway began welcoming fans and their campers. “We have to look (out) for possible disruptions, whether it’s weather or any unforeseen circumstances. But we’ve got a tremendous operation staff that supports me every day.”

KEEPING THE PEOPLE HAPPY: I’ll spend a lot of my time this weekend with sponsors, guests, fans and I’ll spend a significant amount of time with the media up to and through the race on Saturday. I’ll take a lot of time to ensure that our sponsors are being taken care of the right way and that they are getting the value for their sponsorship. We have a brand new racetrack that was just redone, resurfaced and reshaped. Plus NASCAR has added more practice time, so we started practicing Wednesday afternoon to prepare. We’ve been in full operations mode as far as dealing with our fans since then.

BLUE SKIES AHEAD? I’ll talk with Sprint Cup Series Race Dir DAVID HOOTS about the contingency plans, how the weather looks for the weekend, if we have delays or cancellations, when our makeup times are going to be, then how we can handle that. God forbid we have to use the contingency plans but you have to have them. I’ll be very curious as an observer as to how the cars are doing on the racetrack because of the brand new surface. We’ve been spending a lot of time working on it. I’ll be very curious to see how that all transpires, just like everybody who is buying a ticket. You can think you know what’s going to happen, but until you’ve got 40 cars going side-by-side you’re really not sure.

TAKE A LOAD OFF: When this is over, I'll go whitewater rafting with my family to relax. We always go down to West Virginia. It’s the exact opposite of what I’m currently doing. Though there is still an action element to it. We try to tear it up at least for a few days. I also like playing golf, and my family and I are going up to New York soon as well to take in some Broadway shows. In the meantime, I’m reading DAVID AXELROD’s “Believer: My Forty Years In Politics." I’m a bit of a politics junkie, I listen to a lot of podcasts and other than that I’m reading the Washington Post. On Sundays I will always do some sort of solid workout. I like to mix it up, as I don’t want to get bored with a routine. 

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