Today’s Coke 600 is primed for success. But what’s next for Charlotte Motor Speedway?
The Coca-Cola 600 roars back in full throat Sunday night, with a crowd that should approach 100,000 ready to watch NASCAR’s longest race.
After two years at Charlotte Motor Speedway where COVID impacted the number of fans dramatically, this will be the first Coke 600 since 2019 where the crowd — and the traffic — has fully returned. The weather is supposed to be sunny, the carnival-style midway will be rocking, the earplugs will be necessary and the day will likely be a success.
But one lo-o-o-o-ng, well-attended race every Memorial Day weekend isn’t enough to make any racetrack relevant for the other 364 days in a year. To do that, speedway officials are working on plans for the next decade and beyond, as Charlotte Motor Speedway continues to try to diversify its offerings and become a year-round entertainment complex.
“We’re looking at opportunities and fan patterns,” said Mike Burch, the chief operating officer of Speedway Motorsports, which is headquartered in Charlotte but owns 11 different tracks around the country, including Charlotte Motor Speedway and tracks in the Atlanta, Texas and Las Vegas areas. “I’m looking out the window (at CMS) and I see a lot of real estate. What can you do with that?”
Car shows, music festivals, high school graduations, monster trucks, a massive Christmas light show, Speed Street (moved to the speedway from uptown Charlotte this year) and the excellent teenage defensive driving school BRAKES: They are already part of the year-round mix at the multi-track Concord facility.
But there’s more to come, as the area around exit 49 in Concord continues to expand.
“Who knows what the next entertainment thing will be?” Burch said. “Frisbee golf? A par-3 golf course?”
Or you could put the NASCAR all-star race back at Charlotte Motor Speedway, of course — which would fill another week of high-profile programming and almost makes too much sense. CMS was the all-star race’s home every year from 1987-2019, and the shorter, often more exciting race made for a welcome contrast to the 600.
But Speedway Motorsports, which controls the all-star race, has moved it around for each of the past three years — first to Bristol in 2020 because of COVID fan protocols, then to Texas in 2021 and 2022. Although local track leadership for Charlotte Motor Speedway would love to have the all-star event again, Speedway Motorsports has all sorts of choices where to put it next.
And although the most recent Texas race received many negative reviews via social media — owing to a complex format, a stale race and a controversial finish that forced Ryan Blaney to win the race twice — Burch insisted that the event was “phenomenal” from his trackside view.
As for whether the race would come back to Charlotte for 2023 — NASCAR usually announces its schedule for the following year in September — Burch was careful not to tip Speedway Motorsports’ hand. But he sounded studiously neutral at best.
“As we saw in Charlotte, there was a lot of … criticism that the all-star race was just a warmup for the 600,” Burch said, referring to the fact the non-points all-star race was traditionally run one weekend earlier in May at CMS than the 600. “And it was really hard to differentiate the two and create a strong identity for either one of our partners.
Continued Burch: “Back when you had Sprint or Monster as the main sponsor of the all-star race, how do they get their due and their appreciation and the impact that they’re trying to make when the next week you’re in the same market with the Coke 600? ... We definitely saw when we separated it (the all-star race) from the 600 that it put a lot more emphasis on the 600. And we’re certainly seeing that this weekend, which is great for everybody.” Burch also left open the possibility that, if the all-star race were to return to Charlotte, that it would be run in another month entirely to get some distance from the 600.
The first 600-mile race at Charlotte Motor Speedway was held in 1960, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. It was called the World 600 back then, and it’s impressive that the race has stayed relevant as long as it has. Many people wish each year that the race was 100-200 miles shorter as it stretches toward the four-hour mark, but it has clung to its history as NASCAR’s ultimate endurance test.
Charlotte also hosts a NASCAR Cup playoff race in October — the Bank of America ROVAL 400. And the speedway hosts a variety of summer shootouts, drag races and the like.
But more is to come, and it needs to come. Like Bank of America Stadium, which is finally being used as a multi-purpose stadium the way it always should have been, the speedway has loads of potential.
How about a new community park on all that land? How about playing some college football games inside? How about more drive-in movies? How about some high school football state championship games? How about Charlotte FC coming over to play an exhibition against an English Premier League team on a one-off basis?
Sunday will be a fun day for the speedway, but it should also only be the beginning. There’s much more that can still be done to maximize one of the Charlotte area’s biggest assets.
This story was originally published May 29, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Today’s Coke 600 is primed for success. But what’s next for Charlotte Motor Speedway?."
