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France would like to see New Hampshire, which has 26 consecutive sellouts and is important to marketing the sport in the Boston area, keep two dates.
For that to happen, SMI might have to consider taking a date from another one of its tracks to accommodate a second Vegas date, which Smith has been reluctant to do.
“I think two events that are working as well as those two events, you’d like to think they would look best there versus taking one somewhere else, ” said France, who says no change will occur until 2009. “They’ve got to get in there, Bruton and some of those guys and determine that on their own. ” David Newton, ESPN.com
Smith may have masterfully tap-danced his way around the question, but when he was pressed on it later, he turned serious. “I have no plans to move anything or do anything. We’re just into this thing one week and all of our plans are certainly not in place and it’s going to take some time, but right now we have no plans of moving anything. “
It did not, however, preclude Smith from changing his mind. It left open his options to indeed move one of New Hampshire’s two lucrative dates to Vegas, or to swap its Chase date with Texas’s, or, perhaps, to keep the two dates in New Hampshire and build out the 1.058-mile oval, which he is apparently considering. Michael Vega, Boston.com
Last week, 80-year-old Bob Bahre agreed to sell the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon to 80-year-old O. Bruton Smith and his company, Speedway Motorsports Inc., for $340 million. The sale almost certainly means that changes will be made to the track and perhaps to its role on the NASCAR circuit.
Smith owns six of the nation’s NASCAR venues. They include the Texas Motor Speedway, the second-biggest track in the nation after the Indianapolis Speedway. The Texas stadium, which seats 150,000 – about half as many as the Loudon track can seat – hosts two Nextel Cup races, but one conflicts with the opening weekend of deer hunting when hunters take up guns rather than seats in the stands. NashuaTelegraph
