The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series July 9th debut at the Kentucky Speedway was greeted with much anticipation. 107,000 seats were sold out but weren’t completely filled by fans because they were stuck in a lengthy, mega hour, traffic jam at a freeway exit trying to get to the track. Oh, by the way, there was racing that weekend at the Kentucky Speedway. Brad Keselowski had a good weekend and Kyle Busch had a great weekend. With those thoughts in mind, let’s begin with:

[media-credit name=”Brian Douglas” align=”alignright” width=”273″][/media-credit]A never before issued WAZZUP to the third power goes to Kentucky Speedway officials for not being properly prepared for their Sprint Cup debut. Traffic en route to the race track was deplorable and reported to be backed up as much as 20 miles on freeways and highways incapable of handling that many cars at one time. Many fans abandoned their vehicles on the side of the road and walked a reported one to three miles to the race track. There were also reports of fans paying home owners, adjacent to the highway, as much as $20 to park in their yards and then make the long hike to the track. A reported thousands who made it to the track, after being snarled in traffic for as long as five hours, were turned away because the inadequate parking lots were completely full.

WAZZUP with not learning lessons from past events? The Kentucky Speedway is owned by Speedway Motorsports Inc, (SMI). Many years ago the SMI hosted Sprint Cup debuts at their tracks in Fort Worth-Texas and Las Vegas-Nevada. The traffic jams were equally intolerable. But the speedway and SMI officials made quick work of resolving those situations. The Quaker State 400 may have been a Cup debut at Kentucky, but it was not a NASCAR debut. NASCAR’s Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series have been racing at Kentucky for approximately ten years now. During that time there has been reported traffic jams that clearly indicated the freeway to highway interchange leading to the track was a problem. Officials should have seen this coming on Friday afternoon when these highways were overloaded with fans trying to get to the Nationwide Series race.

There’s an ageless proverb that applies to this situation: “if we don’t learn from history, then we are doomed to repeat it.” What happened to those fans trying to get to the Kentucky Speedway on Saturday was definitely a repeat offense.

In all fairness, in the aftermath, speedway officials did issue a formal apology to the impacted fans and has offered them tickets to any remaining 2011 events at SMI owned tracks. They deserve a HOORAH for that gesture. However, that offers only works towards soothing the public relations problem. It doesn’t address the real problems of highway access to and from the speedway as well as the need for more parking. The parking lot situation is easily resolved. The highway situation may take a lot of time and effort.

HOORAH to driver Jimmie Johnson for coming up with a solution for getting to the Kentucky Speedway: rent a helicopter. On the Friday prior to the Cup race Johnson left Kentucky to return home to celebrate his daughter’s birthday. When it came time to return to the race track, Johnson was advised of the expected traffic situation and chose to ride a helicopter back to Kentucky.

WAZZUP with Johnson sharing all of this on “Twitter”? With so many fans stranded for hours on a highway it’s safe to assume they read and sent “Tweets” just to pass the time. They couldn’t have been that thrilled about how easy Johnson made it to the track while they sat still and suffered.

Then again, maybe Johnson really does have a good idea. How about let’s all rent helicopters to attend the Kentucky Speedway’s 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup event. Surely by 2012 SMI will have constructed enough new parking spaces to accommodate all of those whirly birds. If by chance parking is still a problem next year, you can exercise the option of sitting in that little rescue seat and have the pilot lower you to the grandstand area. Dare to dream.

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Oh by the way: in the midst of traffic jams, parking trauma and fans having to stand in line for as long as 30 minutes to use the insufficient amount of portable toilets, there was racing at the Kentucky Speedway that weekend.

Yeah, you know what’s coming next. Fifty percent of you are going to read the next couple of paragraphs filled with rapture like joy. The other fifty percent will experience the biblical weeping and gnashing of teeth perhaps peppered with a few not so biblical four letter words. Brace yourself, it’s Kyle Busch time.

HOORAH for Kyle Busch and the excellent weekend he enjoyed while visiting the bluegrass state. The weekend started on Thursday night when he won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race despite having to be sent to the back of the starting field for being late for the driver’s meeting. While attempting to qualify for Friday’s Nationwide Series race, Busch spun out, hit the wall, had to roll out a back up car and again started at the rear of the field. He made a strong run to a third place finish in that event. During Saturday’s Sprint Cup race he was the class of the field and again returned to the Kentucky Speedway’s victory lane. He also took over first in the Sprint Cup championship points standings.

The accomplishments from his driving talent always seems to generate some very impressive numbers and the Kentucky Speedway weekend was no exception. In a period of 48 hours Busch drove in three races for a total of 925 miles. He ran 619 laps, around the Kentucky Speedway’s 1.5 mile oval, and led 186 of them. Along the way he collected $301,816 in prize money.

But the racing weekend didn’t conclude Saturday night in Kentucky. The following morning Busch flew to Slinger-Wisconsin where he won the Miller LIte Nationals 200, super late model race, at the Slinger Super Speedway.

HOORAH for Brad Keselowski for winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Kentucky while, once again, displaying his talent for conserving fuel. In victory lane the race winner said that his fuel conservation effort was “a seat of the pants operation” adding “I’d like to say it’s a special gauge we put in the car. I call it an Ass-on-o-meter. It’s my ass, that’s my gauge.”

HOORAH to the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for, once again, being the most entertaining race of the weekend at Kentucky. Anyone who has avidly followed this series from the beginning knows exactly what I’m talking about.

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HOORAH for being able to end this week’s column with something very emotional and very positive. A GOD BLESS goes out to Nicole and Greg Biffle who welcomed their new baby daughter, Emma Elizabeth, to their home. The newest member of the NASCAR Nation was born last Wednesday and weighed in a seven pounds six ounces. It’s the couple’s first child.

By now every NASCAR fan in the country is likely well aware of the traffic and parking trauma that created a public relations nightmare during the Kentucky Speedway weekend. Needless to say there has been a lot of comments on this matter since.

[media-credit name=”Joe Dunn” align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]Some of the more interesting ones came from the social network phenomenon known as “Twitter” and “Face Book”. It’s only natural. When you’re snarled in a hopeless traffic jam that’s barely moving, with the dwindling hope that you’re not going to get to see a race you paid hard earned ticket money for, then sending messages on your cell phone is a great way to spend the five hours stranded in a vehicle. Some of those comments truly represented the telephone term “4 G Face Burner.”

The following are just two examples obtained from “Face Book”: “Wow ! Paid $220 for tickets, took five hours to go 20 miles, saw a 67 lap race due to a SRO crowd taking all of the parking. Oh, and we walked three miles. All speedway memorabilia sold out, food and drink sold out. We are supposed to take this in the rear and shut up? Don’t think so, refund please.”

Another message read: “for those unfortunate fans who never made it through the grid lock disaster, Kyle Busch won the Not Ready For Prime Time Quaker State 400.”

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The Kentucky Speedway is owned by SMI, Speedway Motorsports Inc. It’s one of the eight SMI owned race tracks that plays host to NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. SMI is owned by Bruton Smith who is hands down one of the most interesting characters who ever set foot on a speedway. He’ll be the first to tell you that he’s “NASCAR’s biggest customer.”

One of the best self promoters in the business, Smith was all over the Kentucky Speedway property placing himself in front of every media microphone and television camera he could find. With that effort came some genuine Smith verbal gems on a variety of subjects.

Seemingly knowing well in advance that his fans were going to have a major traffic problem coming off of Interstate 71, Smith went on the offensive, as well as the SPEED Channel, and announced that he was going to “pressure” the Governor of Kentucky to make needed road improvements in that area because his race track was going to turn Sparta-Kentucky into the third largest city in the state. “Interstate 71 sucks,” Smith said adding “it’s the worst interstate I’ve ever been on. It’s a disgrace to the great state of Kentucky. We hope to get everybody out of the area and home by Tuesday. You don’t even want to be on it, (interstate 71), This is the worst section of interstate highway in America. The Governor and I have talked about that. Don’t go on I-71, you’re not going to win.”

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However, traffic wasn’t the only issue that had Smith going on the offensive that weekend. There were driver concerns regarding whether or not the Kentucky Speedway had an adequate amount of energy absorbing SAFER barrier walls around its 1.5 mile oval.

That concern was primarily led by drivers Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. Commenting on his safety concerns, Stewart said “they don’t have enough SAFER barriers yet, not near enough SAFER barriers for what we’re doing here and how close the wall is to the race track. Hopefully, none of us will have to test that out.”

When the issue was presented to him by the SPEED Channel, Smith replied “I have not talked to Jeff and Tony, but tell them just to drive where Kyle Busch goes, If they will do that, they won’t have to worry about any padding.” It was almost as if Smith knew Busch was going to dominate the NASCAR Sprint Cup debut at his race track.

There were also driver concerns regarding the state of the track surface which contained a series of bumps especially in turns three and four which turned out to be troublesome all weekend long. Smith said the track had “character” and added “maybe we’ll look at repaving after the 2013 race.”

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In still other Kentucky Speedway comments that deserve to be repeated, Smith was asked about the possibility of his annual Sprint Cup race becoming as popular as the most famous race in Kentucky. That of course would be the Kentucky Derby. Without a second’s hesitation, Smith replied: “we will outdraw that horsey event and we will have a bigger impact.”

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It’s hardly a big secret that Smith seriously wants a second Sprint Cup date for his SMI owned Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The annual numbers from the track’s lone date in March easily supports that argument. It’s safe to assume that the fans are solidly behind the idea as well. Any fan who has ever spent a NASCAR weekend in Las Vegas will stand proud and testify regarding how much fun it is.

If the prospect for a second Cup date at Las Vegas isn’t likely anytime soon, Smith would love to see his March race moved to November. NASCAR’s final race of the season will again be held at the Flordia based Homestead-Miami Speedway. After that, it’s off to Las Vegas for the annual champions week and the gala Sprint Cup awards banquet. To Smith it makes all the sense in the world to finish off the regular racing season, as well as NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Chase For The Championship, at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and then head downtown for the annual party. There seems to be a lot of fans who supports that idea as well.

When asked about the prospect of a Las Vegas date change, Smith quickly replied “yeah, we need to get that last race out of North Cuba.”

Seriously Bruton? North Cuba? It’s easy to imagine the reaction that the Beach Boys, (that would be NASCAR officials in Daytona and not the famous rock n roll band), must have had when Smith let that comment fly.

Was the comment appropriate? In all honesty not really. Was the comment politically correct? That’s hard to say because the PC boundaries seem to constantly change and we’re no longer sure what’s a joke and what’s an insult. Was the comment funny? If I may borrow a quote from famed comedian Larry The Cable Guy:”that’s funny I don’t care who you are.” Should yours truly be chastised for laughing to the point of pain when I heard this comment? Okay, I guess I should have displayed an extra ounce of self control and been a little more sensitive to the feelings of the “North Cubans.”

Anytime Bruton Smith talks about any topic he always has my attention. Because I know he’s going to make a comment that deserves to be repeated.