After talking to a few fans it became apparent many are not impressed with the inaugural Quaker State 400. The most significant complaint about the race weekend was the traffic.
It became apparent during last night’s Nationwide race that Kentucky Speedway had a traffic problem. As the green flag for the Feed The Children 300 flew, thousands of fans were sitting in their cars on Interstate 71 listening on the radio. While the track has hosted Camping World Truck Series and Nationwide Series for ten years, this is the track’s first weekend hosting a Sprint Cup race.
In preparation for the event, Kentucky Speedway added several thousand seats. The unfortunate thing they did not build additional parking spots. The lack of parking caused a massive traffic jam which spread for miles on all incoming roads. Additionally, when you get to a parking lot, there are barricades up all around the lots meaning there is only one way in and one way out of each lot.
Personally, it took myself four hours to arrive at Kentucky Speedway. I left my hotel in Cincinnati at 10:30 EST for my trek to the Speedway. As traffic began backing up about eight miles from the track, I exited and took an alternative route which took me along some beautiful country roads. All appeared great until I got about 2 miles away from the track. Traffic began backing up and the waiting game began. I proceeded to move less than a mile in an hour and a half. It was at this time, I saw a guy selling parking spots in his front yard. I decided to park the car and take to foot.
As I was walking to media center, I began reading tweets from some of the cup drivers. Denny Hamlin, Landon Cassill and Andy Lally all tweeted about traffic woes. I also encountered something I never imagined I would see: Bruton Smith was at an intersection talking on the radio attempting to get another lane of traffic open.
Traffic wasn’t the only complaint on fans minds. I spoke with a fan at the tweet-up that told me there was a line with 20-30 people waiting for a porta potty. She said instead of toilet banks, they had just two or three toilets together and that they were overflowing.
In the end, Kentucky Speedway will learn and fix this problem. It’s important to remember this is Kentucky’s first Cup date and that SMI has owned the track for just over a year. I have faith Bruton Smith and all the folks at Kentucky Speedway will fix the problem and next season will go much smoother.
4 comments:
After a 1 hour drive almost to the track, we waited 4 hrs to go 15 miles, had to turn around 5 miles away or risk bladder failure. Son and grandson, in separate car, decided to continue, got to seats at 9:45! Now they have to get home. We will never go to Kentucky Speedway again – it was a total disaster and $400 down the tubes. Have been to many NASCAR races and never encountered anything like this.
Just got back to my parent's home in Cincinnati. Over 4 houra to the track and nearly 3 hours home. The parking situation was TERRIBLE, the bathroom and concessions were terrible as well. We left Cinci at about 3 for an hour drive and at 7:30 I s=left the car and began walking. I got to my seats around lap 100. What a joke! I'm done with KY speedway and SMI.
Took my family five hours to get 19 miles and when we got to exit 55, around 9pm, there was absolutely no parking. Was directed by the state police to proceed to exit 57. When we arrived at exit 57 the state police would not let us off the on ramp and directed us back onto 71 N telling us to go to the next exit and turn around and come back up to exit 57 and enter there. We drove to exit 62 turned around and by the time we got back to exit 57 the state police had blocked off the ramp. By this time it was 9:40 and we decided to just go home. Over 400 dollars wasted!! Very disappointed!
I wasn't even going to the race! Trying to get through the area heading home to Columbus OH. Spent over an hour in traffic and we were 20 miles from the track. Eventually working our way over to 42 and back to 71 north of track. NASCAR and the State of KY did an awful job of traffic control on Sat to keep traffic moving on 71 in both directions.
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