NASCAR race in June unlikely at Sonoma Raceway

“NASCAR is committed to running every race on its schedule” - Sonoma Raceway President Steve Page|

Gone are the deep-throated throttles of muscle cars, the high-pitched buzzing of motorcycles and the soft whooshing of electric vehicles.

Sonoma Raceway is silent.

The coronavirus shelter-in-place order essentially shut down the largest sports and entertainment venue in the North Bay, also shuttering the 70 or so small businesses that operate at the raceway near Sears Point in southeastern Sonoma County.

The track, operated by the North Carolina-based Speedway Motorsports Inc., was forced to lay off several employees and essentially go dark, like most non-essential businesses under state and county health directives meant to slow the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus.

All on-track events have been officially canceled through early next month, but both the county and state stay-at-home orders are open-ended, leaving the raceway in purgatory.

Though the track operates nearly every day of the year with smaller-scale events and classes, the biggest - and most lucrative - event is the Toyota/SaveMart 350 NASCAR race each June.

Raceway president Steve Page is trying to remain optimistic that it might actually happen.

NASCAR is committed to running every race on its schedule, Page said, which could mean extending the season, holding the usually weekly races more often, and moving races to states that have more lenient isolation orders.

But Page hasn’t given up on hosting this year’s race in Sonoma. He said right now there are three scenarios.

One: running the race as scheduled, June 12-14, with a full crowd.

“I think that train has left the station,” he said April 16.

Two: running the race with no spectators. “That hasn’t left the station, but the horn is blowing and the wheels are starting to turn.”

Three: “The most likely scenario is that we will run at a date in the future. Whether fans are here or not, it is too early to speculate,” he said.

NASCAR’s desire to run its entire schedule will take some creative scheduling, conceivably moving the Toyota/SaveMart 350 out of state if California’s shelter-in-place order extends that deeply into the season.

“There is tremendous economic incentive, because of the TV rights for every event, to make sure every event is staged and realized. That will be a motivating factor,” Page said.

But different states will have different social-distancing rules, and Page thinks California may be one of the last states to allow large public events. Leaders in Los Angeles and other cities have suggested major sporting events and concerts may not return until 2021.

The raceway is canceling events on a rolling schedule, first through mid-April, now early May. Opening any phase of the operation will depend on government orders.

“We see what the state says, what the county says. We check in with our county supervisor for guidance,” Page said.

“We’re hoping we can open at some point and have a very compressed calendar to make up for things not happening now. The challenge is just the unknown. If you knew this was going to come to an end, you could start making plans. But we’re just in limbo.”

Potentially losing NASCAR’s revenue - the single-largest event of the year at the raceway that welcomes more than 100,000 spectators, huge sponsor money and TV rights - is “worrisome,” Page acknowledged.

“There are a lot of revenue streams for that event and the TV rights are a big one,” he said. “In any scenario where we run the race without spectators, we’d take a hit. But we’d make accommodations for sponsors to get the exposure they’d normally get.”

He said he is in ongoing communication with SaveMart and Toyota as the situation evolves.

Losing that much revenue at once, along with the wholesale closure of all the small businesses at the raceway, caused sizeable layoffs, Page said, including of some long-term employees.

The raceway is part of Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns seven other tracks around the country.

For the first month of the economic shutdown, corporation employees were paid full salaries while raceways were dormant.

But this week, it announced a downsizing.

“We have made the difficult decision to restructure our business and eliminate many duplicate positions,” the company said in a statement. “Unfortunately, part of this restructuring includes eliminating approximately 180 positions across all departments at our speedways and subsidiaries.”

Another 100 employees were furloughed.

Page declined to disclose the specific number of job losses at Sonoma Raceway other than to say they were “across the board” and a “significant number.”

About 300 people work at the track and its auxiliary businesses.

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