An opportunity awaits West Virginia. It sounds like thunder and fanatic screams, it smells like burnt rubber and fuel and it looks like flashes of chrome and metal spinning in a delicately controlled chaos. Motorsports fans in West Virginia are as plentiful as the state’s abundant rhododendron, yet motorsports have not taken root here. Motorsports fans, unfortunately, have to travel outside West Virginia’s borders to get the tank filled with racing excitement.

A recent ESPN poll that ranked states with race fans on a per capita basis found that West Virginia is first in the nation with a full 50 percent of its citizens reporting they are fans of motorsports. Unfortunately, this may well have a net negative economic effect on West Virginia. How so? There are 12 operating race tracks in West Virginia. In the five states that border West Virginia, there are 223. It does not take much to see which way the money flows.

Not only are those figures important, but have a look at the really big races like NASCAR Nextel Cup events that are hosted by our neighboring states. Bristol Motor Speedway, which seats 166,000 spectators around a half-mile track, reports that 46 percent of the people in those seats come from West Virginia. Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia’s near-neighbor North Carolina each have two Nextel Cup races. Kentucky has Busch and Craftsman Truck races. The only state in the nation with four NASCAR Nextel Cup races is West Virginia’s good neighbor, Virginia. Hence, West Virginia is exporting millions of dollars to its neighboring states as its race fans have to travel out-of-state to see big time racing. It’s often been said that every weekend West Virginians go racing; they just don’t go racing in West Virginia.

Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that a new motorsports facility in West Virginia would keep some of its motorsports dollars at home and at the same time bring out-of-state dollars in?

The Need for Speed

Auto racing is the world’s most popular spectator sport. An estimated 75 million fans bought two billion tickets for motorsports events worldwide and an estimated 50 billion televised impressions were made in 2006. Motorsports is also the fastest growing sport in the world. In the last five years, attendance growth has more than tripled in comparison to that of Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the National Hockey League combined.

Television ratings of motorsports have been equally impressive, showing a 20 percent increase in both network and cable ratings, while those of the National Football League and National Basketball Association have shown little or no growth. Motorsports also had the highest number of live spectators of any sport in the United States in 2006.

Most auto racing series are run on an eight to 10-month schedule, providing a tourism attraction that is considerably less seasonal than skiing, hunting, golfing or whitewater rafting. Racetracks are spread all across North America, exposing the sport to a broad cross-section of people in the United States and Canada, continually enlarging the fan/tourist base.

A recent study to define the top 10 sporting events in the U.S., on the basis of economic impact, found that the Super Bowl ranked fourth, the Kentucky Derby ranked ninth and the other eight were motorsports events. Last year, of the 20 highest attended sporting events in the U.S., 17 were motorsports events.

With the advent of cable and satellite television and motorsports-specific periodicals, media coverage of motorsports has grown over 1,000 percent in the last 10 years. This year more racing events will be televised than ever before.

Burning Rubber and Growing Cash

The Cabarras County, North Carolina government reports that the two NASCAR Nextel Cup events held annually at Lowe’s Motor Speedway near Charlotte impact the local economy to the tune of $750 million.

Texas Motor Speedway’s President Eddie Gossage fought hard to convince NASCAR to grant them a second Nextel Cup race. Why was Gossage so interested in that second date? It’s simple. Each event impacts the local economy by a half billion dollars.

City of Phoenix officials have indicated that the single Nextel Cup event held at Phoenix International Raceway in 2001 had a 50 percent greater economic impact than the four Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees World Series games played there that year combined.

NASCAR’s TV deals are worth $2.8 billion with Fox, NBC and TNT networks. Between 1995 and 2006, the number of televised events climbed 420 percent. Each week, the races are broadcast in 23 languages in more than 150 countries. New tracks are planned for Los Angeles, New York City and the Pacific Northwest. Corporations spend more than $1 billion a year for NASCAR sponsorships and promotions and annual sales of NASCARlicensed merchandise top $2 billion. At its big races last year, NASCAR sold an average of 186,000 tickets at an average price of $75.

When long-time Winston Cup Series Sponsor R. J. Reynolds decided to leave due to the economic pinch exerted by the tobacco settlement, NASCAR turned right around and inked a 10-year deal with Nextel for the naming rights to its premier series for $700 million.

Revving Up

Racing is booming. The number of circle tracks in the U.S. will soon top 1,000 for the first time since 1955. Shares of a half dozen racing businesses are traded on the major stock exchanges. Fortune 500 companies are marketing their products through relationships with virtually every type of motorsports and there’s a good reason. Motorsports sell corn flakes. Race fans are fiercely brand loyal. Fans buy the products produced by the companies that make their sport possible. The extreme loyalty NASCAR fans show to corporate sponsors is one reason NASCAR attracts more money from more Fortune 500 companies than any other sports or entertainment property in America.

There are TV programs and indeed entire channels dedicated to motorsports. Witness shows like Crank & Chrome, Hot Rod TV, Pinks, Horsepower TV, RPM Tonight, Inside NASCAR, Wind Tunnel and Raceline, among others. There’s also Speedvision, the “all racing, all the time” channel. Just look at what’s being raced. Everything under the sun is competing on a track: Indy cars, stock cars, sports cars, pickup trucks, monster trucks, motorcycles, ATVs, go-karts, tractors, school buses, boats, airplanes and on and on. Believe it or not, there is even lawn mower racing—it even has its own sanctioning body, the National Lawn Mower Racing Association—and the races are televised.

Race fans are unique creatures. They may well save all year to go to their favorite motorsports event. This is their vacation. While in West Virginia for a racing event, they would buy gas, food,lots of beer, hotel/motel rooms, camera film, sun screen, souvenirs and would more likely than not partake in other attractions such as state parks, golf, ATV trails or whitewater rafting.

What does all this really mean for West Virginia? Simply put, motorsports has the potential to significantly impact both tourism and economic development, perhaps more so than any other tourism-related industry.

Why is West Virginia not considering building a new, high-profile facility similar to those that applied for, but did not receive, funding assistance from the state’s Economic Development Grant Committee in 2002? The construction of such a project would bring national recognition to West Virginia and inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the state and local economies.

While West Virginia is continually ranked at or near the bottom in a host of socio-economic categories, the state arguably has the best whitewater rafting, the best hunting and fishing, the best skiing, the best fall foliage, the best motorcycle touring, the best off-road motorcycle/ATV trail system and the best state parks in the country.

West Virginia is now ranked first in the nation in race fans on a per capita basis. The state needs to capitalize on this to keep more of its in-state motorsports dollars in the state, while at the same time luring more out-of-state-dollars into West Virginia. How can the state do this effectively? Commit to fund, construct and operate a first-class motorsports complex in West Virginia.

Capturing the Checkered Flag of Economics

What West Virginia needs is a well-designed, multi-venue motorsports complex capable of hosting both regular Saturday night weekly racing series events and touring series events that bring national television coverage. West Virginia will not get a NASCAR Nextel Cup or Busch Grand National event so it will need to design a facility of the right size. The facility should be large enough to attract some other national touring series, such as USAR Hooters Pro Cup, ASA and USAC Triple Crown sprint cars, yet small enough to host the local drivers in four or five classes of competition. While NASCAR refrains from making sanctioning commitments prior to a facility being completed and in operation, a West Virginia facility would certainly hope to attract a NASCAR Busch East and/or West Division race and perhaps a Craftsman Truck event.

The facility could have other racing options. The incorporation of different motorsports venues could include an oval track, dragstrip, multiple road courses, vehicle dynamics and proving pad, kart racing tracks and a motocross/ATV venue that would provide for motorsports-related activities on a seven-day per week basis.

Such a complex could host other, nonracing events such as car shows, swap meets, fairs and festivals, concerts, driving schools, performance, anti-terrorism and defensive driving training for government agencies and law enforcement, race team tire testing, skid pad performance and vehicle dynamics proving. The complex could include a motorsports-related business park and the West Virginia Motorsports Hall of Fame and Museum.

Let’s start this economic engine. Let’s build a motorsports complex in West Virginia.