NASCAR race officials and drivers are giving strong indications that their two-year experiment in Austin isn’t just a passing fancy. Stock car racing’s weekend tripleheader at Circuit of the Americas will wrap up with Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Cup Grand Prix. A crowd in the vicinity of 50,000 is expected. The American-Statesman has learned that Speedway Motorsports, which operates the race and rents COTA for the week, and track officials have agreed to add an option for next year. The original contract was for 2021 with an option for ’22. More: Youth movement taking over NASCAR as COTA’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix weekend starts”We feel confident enough to take ticket renewals for next year,” Mike Burch, SMI chief operating officer, told the newspaper. “That’s a good sign we want to be here. We feel pretty good we’ll be back.”If all goes to plan, we’ll look over events on the schedule, what else is going on in Austin, and figure out, ‘Do we come back on this same weekend, the May weekend we had last year or some other weekend that makes sense?’”Bobby Epstein, chairman of Circuit of the Americas, likes what he’s seen in year two.”This is going to be a successful weekend, they’ll have a good crowd (Sunday), and I think they’ll want to come back.”The Statesman polled more than a half-dozen drivers who each gave COTA a thumbs-up.”I’d like to see us do everything we can to stay here. This track should on the A list,” said Tyler Reddick, a two-time Xfinity Series champion who’s now the Cup driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing.”When you consider the Formula One races, MotoGP, all the international sports car races they’ve held here, it’s a prestigious place. COTA should be an annual stop.”Veteran Kurt Busch is one of the few Cup drivers who had experience at COTA before last year’s inaugural, rain-drenched Austin NASCAR weekend. More: Sunny outlook for NASCAR ‘festival’ at Circuit of the Americas this weekend”I drove some sports cars here years ago,” the No. 45 Toyota driver said. “I was intrigued by the place, the aura of it. The track has a lot of personalities, from technical to speed. It has a European feel. You sense you’re in someplace special, and it’s not like that every week. COTA deserves a date on our calendar.”The competition is fierce for Cup races. Two companies largely control those events. International Speedway Corp. owns 12 tracks; Speedway Motorsports has 11. COTA, owned by Epstein’s group, got the gig when NASCAR moved one of Texas Motor Speedway’s races to COTA in exchange for putting the All-Star race at TMS. But that is a temporary deal. What will it take for Austin to gain staying power?”First and foremost, you need good racing,” Burch said. “We’ll watch closely Sunday for that. Last year’s rain didn’t give COTA a fair shot. Texas has been a great market for us with so many important TV markets and population centers. We’ll look at how to keep three races in Texas.
All data is taken from the source:
Article Link:
#CircuitoftheAmericas #newsweather #newstodayabc #newsworld #newstodaylocal #usanewstoday #
This article was gathered automatically by our news bot. We help YouTubers by driving traffic to them for free. The featured image in this article is the thumbnail of the embedded video. Thank you for visiting Win Big Sports Network and wbsnsports.com. For more sports, news, and entertainment, follow us on Twitter @WBSNsports or like our page on Facebook.
#Racing #NASCAR #Sports
