Mission accomplished for NASCAR at Coronado

Naval Base Coronado gave NASCAR what it had hoped.

“I think we all looked around the room today and we said mission has been accomplished,” said NASCAR COO Ben Kennedy after Sunday’s Cup Series race.

It was the first time the sport had run on a military base. The inaugural event, which took place over the last three days, had been branded as a mission more than a race. All three national series took to the 3.4-mile course throughout the weekend at the active-duty military base, and the sanctioning body was pleased with the results.

“We feel like this is a tremendously successful event,” Kennedy said. Obviously, we want to be respectful that this is an active military base at the same time. It was a great partnership, a great pairing, being the 250th anniversary of the United States Navy, the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. You can’t ask for a better time than this.

“We would love to return. We’re also cognizant of the fact that this is an active military base, and we want to be mindful of that.”

NASCAR will do its usual deep dive into the event as it puts San Diego in the rearview mirror. The sport took lessons from three years of racing around the streets of Chicago out west, and lessons from each day to bring into the rest of the weekend.

There will also be conversations with the Navy on what both sides learned and what went well. Eventually, there will be a conversation about any opportunities for a return.

“I think going into this weekend, one of the things that we were most mindful of is the amount of people that you can frankly get on an off the base,” Kennedy said. “(The bridge to get onto Coronado) is a pretty narrow passage way, so we could have sold more tickets. We actually cut it off around 50,000 people per day. We want to make sure that ingress and egress were palatable for a lot of our fans.

“Then over the last couple of days, obviously watching concessions, our bathrooms, and some of the different areas with logjams around some of the bridges. We had an all-hands ops meeting every single day. We got everyone together after the event yesterday, and overnight, made phone calls and brought in food trucks and extra staff to work our bars and concession stands. So, in real time, our team was working on areas to continue to improve that fan experience.”

There were three different winners across the weekend, with two of them coming with last-lap passes. All three races also featured red flags and big crashes. NASCAR had to fix the pit wall during the Craftsman Truck Series race, and Turn 1 was the trouble spot for many throughout the weekend, with walls/fences that needed to be put back in place.

Kennedy, however, said the walls did what they needed to do and held up. The walls did give way upon contact, and it was a high-speed course.

“Anytime you saw a vehicle go into the wall, it pushed back a bit, which we were expecting and hoping for,” Kennedy said. “We have a team that is always making sure that we’re operationally ready for moments like that. We had some learnings yesterday that we applied today, and I would say that going forward, we make sure that we reduce the amount of time to repair those walls as much as we can.”

Kennedy also provided the following statistics from the weekend:

· There were over 125,000 people at the course throughout the weekend.

· Attendees were from 50 states and 17 different countries.

· 67% of the attendees had never been to a NASCAR race.

· 11% higher attendance for female attendees compared to other NASCAR events.

· 3x the Hispanic audience compared to other NASCAR events.

“We weren’t really in the street course business four or five years ago,” Kennedy said. “We were in the permanent facility business, and that is what a majority of the NASCAR schedule is going to continue to be for a long period of time. At the same time, street courses, I believe, we would have one or two on them for a long period of time in the future of our schedule.”