The Daytona 500 may be the “Super Bowl of stock car racing,” but Homestead-Miami Speedway has been working to create a Super Bowl-like atmosphere around its season-ending NASCAR events.
HMS hosts the Ford 400 Nextel Cup race on Nov. 20, along with the season finales for the Busch and Craftsman Truck series leading up to the Cup event, and has packaged a week’s worth of concerts, festivals and gala celebrations around Ford Championship Week.
Curtis Gray, president of HMS, attended last February’s Super Bowl in Jacksonville and has been working with members of that host committee as well as the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau to model NASCAR’s season finale after the largest annual sporting spectacle in the world.
“The Daytona 500 will always be the biggest race of the year,” Gray said. “That’s the one race that the drivers will always want to win. Ours is more about a celebration of the championship.”
Several peripheral events are designed to create such an atmosphere, including a Pineapple Gala Charity Event, a Crown Royal Racers’ Invitational Fishing Tournament, race-themed street festivals, a kickoff party with local celebrities and professional athletes, and numerous musical performances. Though not on the level of the Super Bowl, Gray hopes Miami’s NASCAR week will continue to grow.
“Those events will grow in the years to come,” he said. “I believe we’ll have more concerts, more celebrities, more parties, more receptions and a lot more corporate interest around the weeks leading up to the race.”
The Chase for the Nextel Cup has had an impact on ticket sales, Gray said, as this year’s race sold out in early August and, as of last week, HMS had sold all 66 suites, 16 of which are new. Gray plans to sell five temporary suites as well.
