By every metric, NASCAR executive vice president and chief venue and racing innovations officer Ben Kennedy agrees that the Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium was a success but its also no secret that the preseason event is destined for an overseas tour.
“We were very happy with the performance of the Clash,” Kennedy said. “I had the opportunity to be there the entire weekend, meet a lot of the local folks and also walk around on Saturday and Sunday…
“To have over 15,000 people there, sold out on Saturday and Sunday, it’s an opportunity for us to promote the season ahead and promote our biggest event, the Daytona 500. It did just that. Being on big FOX, having a great turnout like that and being able to put on a good racing product—we were pleased with it.
“We’re learning a lot, a few small tweaks we’d like to make if we do bring the Clash back there at some point in the future.”
After spending three years at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, in which the event was used to reach a new audience, Kennedy concedes the future for the event could be serving that purpose abroad.
“It’s an opportunity, as we think long-term, for us to think about, ‘Hey, does it potentially go international? Does it rotate? Does it stay domestic?’ We’re looking at a number of different options long-term for where that event could go.
“It is an exhibition race. It is prior to the season. It is an opportunity for us to promote the season in new, novel and different ways. I think that’s what we’ve done over the past few years.”
Mexico City will host a Cup Series points race this summer at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
This decade has seen NASCAR, under the scheduling direction of Kennedy, embark on initiatives that pay tribute to the past while also paving new roads. NASCAR has returned to traditional tracks like North Wilkesboro, Rockingham and Bowman Gray while also racing in Downtown Los Angeles and Chicago.
That is very much a strategy.
“We can have things domestically that we do that celebrate our roots in the regular season that logistically, frankly, makes a lot more sense, and then we can have these new, novel concepts, potentially internationally, prior to our season to be able to not just engage the U.S. market through people watching on television or maybe some of them will want to go and travel, but now for us to engage an international market and have them tune in as well,” Kennedy said.
