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DRIVES EXCITEMENT AT GATEWAY RACEWAY
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By Brian R. Hook
The roaring rumble of car engines and the searing summer sun beating down on thousands of fans means that the racing season is back in full force just across the river from downtown St. Louis at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill.
More and more fans are showing up each year to watch a plethora of racing events, including the NASCAR Busch Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, among others. Matt Strelo, vice president and general manager at Gateway estimates annual attendance at close to 500,000. The track has a seating capacity of around 70,000.
“I think this is one of the strongest growth markets in the country,” Strelo says. He notes that the raceway has doubled its season ticket base each of the last two years. “We’ve seen tons of growth… and this year the trends are just phenomenal,” he says.
Gateway’s marketing focus is on people who live within a 100 to 150 mile radius of the track. Many of the races draw several thousand fans from out of town Strelo says. “We fill up an awful lot of hotel rooms.” He estimates that the track’s fan base is about 60 percent from Missouri and about 35 percent from Illinois, with the other five percent from beyond the region. “The bulk of our fan base is within an hour drive,” he says.
The growth at Gateway is part of a national trend. Hoover’s Inc., a provider of company and market intelligence, reports that the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing or NASCAR is one of the fastest growing spectator-sports in the country. NASCAR, family owned and based in Daytona Beach, Fla., runs more than 100 races each year at tracks across the U.S. in several different circuits, including the Busch, Craftsman Truck and its signature Nextel Cup Series (formerly the Winston Cup).
Gateway, owned by Dover Motorsports Inc in Dover, Del., hosts about 300 events each year. Strelo admits that many of the events at the track are small, with some
only attracting several hundred spectators.
He says he would like to attract a Nextel
Cup race to Gateway to further boost
attendance. That, however, would require NASCAR to relocate an existing race elsewhere to St. Louis. “The difficulty is that right now the schedule is jam-packed and there are no Nextel Cup dates to get,” Strelo says.
 NASCAR Busch Series-2004 Charter 250. |
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Without the Nextel Cup making a stop at Gateway, the track has a $50 million to $70 million economic impact annually on the St. Louis region estimates Timothy Sullivan, instructor in the department of economics and finance at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He says that estimate might double with a Nextel Cup race.
“These things can be really big if you have the right races,” Sullivan says. “If you don’t host the right races, the impact can be much smaller,” because he says the lower profile races don’t attract as many outside-the-area fans. “The fact that we’ve not been able to attract a Nextel cup race has probably limited the economic impact,” he says.
Strelo, meanwhile, says attracting a Nextel Cup is high on his agenda. “We are trying very hard to build Gateway’s national reputation in the short-term to be sure we are at the head of the line when and if new schedules are developed.” One reputation-boosting event scheduled for this summer is the homecoming of driver Rusty Wallace.
The St. Louis native will return to race at Gateway in a Busch Series event on July 30th for the first time. Wallace, who is retiring after this year, ranks as one of the top five money winners in NASCAR history with over $43 million in career earnings.
Wallace will also be racing against his younger brothers Mike and Kenny. It will be the first time that the brothers have raced against each other in a NASCAR event in their hometown. “We expect to arguably have the strongest stand alone Busch race in the country this year,” Strelo says, referring to the Rusty Wallace tribute race at Gateway.
In addition to boosting attendance at Gateway, Strelo is also working on boosting sponsorships. “We clearly have some pretty strong national exposure,” Strelo says. Many of the events at Gateway are televised nationally. He says he considers Gateway as a “niche property” and subscribes to a “less is more” theory when it comes to advertising.
Rather than getting hundreds of different advertisers, Strelo says he would rather focus on a smaller, core group. “We sell official status. We sell exclusivity. We sell dominance,” he says. “We basically sell marketing partnership rather than sponsorships.”
Plus, Strelo says it’s not just racing at Gateway. He focuses on what he calls the “overall entertainment experience.” Instead of simply providing over two hours of racing, Strelo likes to add a pre and post-show. The pre-show often involves exhibits. “Fans can spend five or six hours out here before a race starts and not be bored,” he says.
Gateway also puts on a fireworks show with each major event. Plus it also often provides country music concerts after the race, often drawing 15,000 people. In the past some of the performers have included Martina McBride and Travis Trent. “I like to say that we sell more than racing tickets… we sell experiences,” Strelo says.
It’s this kind of salesmanship that attracted Jason Dukes to start working at Gateway earlier this year as business development manager. Before arriving at Gateway, he worked directly for NASCAR. He says he views Gateway as “up and coming.”
“Coming in from NASCAR… where I went from track to track… it was very easy for me to see that there was something special at this track,” he says. “Everybody that works here seems to have a lot of fun and it shows in the events that they put on.”
| NHRA Sears Craftsman Nationals in 2004. |
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