The "biggest winner" in yesterday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway was a track that has "taken a beating over bad attendance news in recent years," according to Joe Medley of the ANNISTON STAR. Track Chair Grant Lynch said that the weather "was ideal, the economy is better and efforts to enhance the fan experience since last fall translated into a crowd of 'well north of 100,000.'" Driver Denny Hamlin said, "This was the biggest crowd I've seen here in many, many years." Medley notes attendance had "trended in the wrong direction for some time, and NASCAR stopped providing attendance estimates two years ago." The last announced Talladega crowd "was 88,000" for the fall race in '12. Recent years had seen Talladega officials "tarp over unused portions of the main grandstand, but not Sunday." Lynch said, "We’ve been hammered for our spring race -- which is our biggest race -- for a long time with really unusual, tornadic and then just wet weather. This year, we had the best weather we’ve had in a long, long time, and we benefited from that.” He added, "The most amazing thing about Talladega is that 71 percent of our fans are coming from out of state. We rank as the number one and two events out of 21 for ISC on bringing people into their state from out of state, percentage wise.” Medley notes Talladega had "other factors working in its favor this weekend, including ISC’s rollout of giant, portable TV screens to provide close-ups and replays for fans in attendance" (ANNISTON STAR, 5/5).
