Report: LVMS considering removal of seats

The newspaper reports that fans who sought to renew seats in Sections 1 and 3 – the lower grandstands fronting the track's Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Terraces – were told they could not purchase them for 2018. While acknowledging that those sections were not currently being offered for sale, LVMS President Chris Powell told the Review-Journal that "a final decision hasn't been made" over whether the sections would be eliminated.

The Review-Journal estimated attendance for the Kobalt 400 at LVMS earlier this month (pictured above) at 70,000, while noting that NASCAR stopped releasing attendance figures in 2013. It reports that the elimination of the sections in question would reduce the speedway's capacity to 80,000.

A reduction in seating capacity for LVMS would follow an ongoing trend. The building boom in large-capacity speedways of the 1990s and early 2000s, in response to NASCAR's rapid rise in attendance and TV audience during those years, has been followed with those tracks having to accommodate persistent declines in both in the years since.

Daytona International Speedway provided a template other tracks appear to be emulating in reducing excess capacity in return for more modern, comfortable seating and a better overall fan experience. Daytona, which reduced its capacity from a maximum of 168,000 to 101,500 permanent seats with its recent "Daytona Rising" makeover, announced sellouts for the past two Daytona 500s.