Colorado National Speedway operator Scotty Backman said attendance at last Saturday’s races reached 10,000 — the most since Renegade Promotions bought the facility in the fall of 2004.
Backman thinks the rising cost of fuel could be helping attendance at the NASCAR-sanctioned short oval because “people are choosing to stay close to home instead of traveling,” he said.
CNS sits in the small town of Dacono, about 20 miles north of Denver at the Erie exit on Interstate 25. Backman said CNS has about 13,500 grandstand seats, but he is only privy to attendance numbers since Renegade took over.
Despite good attendance, Backman is cognizant of the price of fuel for his visitors and will continue running promotions. For this Saturday’s event during Father’s Day weekend, CNS is selling grandstand tickets to fathers for $5, half of what they normally cost.
Drive for diversity goes south.
Mauricia Grant, a former infield technical inspector for NASCAR’s Nationwide Series (formerly Busch Series), is suing NASCAR for $225 million for alleged racial and sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and wrongful termination.
Grant, who is black, was a NASCAR employee from 2005-2007. In her lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York, the 32-year-old says coworkers called her a “nappy-headed ho” and “Queen Sheba,” and she became frightened by one official who allegedly often spoke about the Ku Klux Klan while she worked at the job she loved.
“It was a great, exciting, adrenaline-filled job where I worked with fast cars and the best drivers in the world,” Grant told The Associated Press. “But there was an ongoing daily pattern (of harassment). It was the nature of the people I worked with, the people who ran it; it trickled down from the top. It’s just the way things are in the garage.”
Positive drive.
Allison Gordon, a young black woman from Denver, was selected for NASCAR’s Diversity Internship Program that gives minority college students a 10-week paid summer internship with the Florida-based organization.
Gordon, a former basketball player at George Washington High School, recently graduated from Florida A&M in Tallahassee. She plans on pursuing a master’s degree in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Footnotes.
Joe Nemechek, who drives for Furniture Row Racing, became the 37th driver to exceed $1 million in earnings this year. He is at $1,040,550, and is 37th in the standings. . . . Nemechek, nicknamed “Front Row Joe,” produced his second top-five qualifying position last weekend. He was fifth in time trials at Pocono, Pa., backing up a pole-winning run in April at Talladega, Ala. He finished 25th (Talladega) and 29th (Pocono) in those races. “The potential is there and I feel we are so close to putting it all together,” Nemechek said in a release. . . . Car owner Jack Roush, who nearly died in 2002 when the plane he was flying crashed into a lake, remains an avid airplane buff. He is scheduled to participate in the flyover before Saturday’s Craftsman Truck Series race at Brooklyn, Michigan.
