February 28, 2012
By Doug Demmons
It isn’t anybody’s fault that it rained at Daytona.
It’s not NASCAR’s fault. It’s not the fault of International Speedway Corp. It’s not even Kyle Busch’s fault even though he gets blamed for everything else.
But it’s still a problem that thousands of people planned on going to the Daytona 500 for months; spent large amounts of money on hotel rooms, gas, food and tickets and used up vacation time to be there.
And then they were unable to see the race because it was postponed.
If that happened to you, you would be hacked off too.
It isn’t cheap to go to the Daytona 500. Some Daytona hotels seem to try to make a year’s worth of income in one weekend. It’s very easy for just one person to spend more than $1,000 to spend the weekend there.
So it was understandable when some angry fans called in to a Sirius XM radio show on Monday morning to vent.
The question is whether NASCAR or the speedway or ISC should do something to compensate those folks. And the answer is absolutely yes.
Not because they are legally obligated to do so. They aren’t.
If you buy a ticket to an outdoor sporting event, like a baseball game, you do so with the implied risk that the weather might mess it up. Your ticket is still good when the event is eventually held, but no one is obligated to give you another hotel room.
But that’s beside the point. The track can point to the fine print on the ticket and say they don’t have to do anything more, but what they would end up with is one less customer, a fan who then tells all his friends about the lousy time he had in Daytona.
When thousands of NASCAR fans spent hours in cars snarled in traffic outside Kentucky Speedway last year instead of in their seats watching the race, it wasn’t Bruton Smith’s fault. He doesn’t own the roads outside his SMI-owned track.
But he didn’t hesitate to offer those fans a replacement ticket to this year’s race or a race at one of his other tracks.
That was the right thing to do. It’s what ISC should do for Daytona fans who had to be back at work on Monday or who had kids who had to be back in school.
Offer those fans a ticket to one of their many other tracks this year. Plenty of those tracks have lots of seats that go unsold so it would hardly be a huge financial hit.
Do it because it’s the smart thing to do. Fans will appreciate the gesture.
Doug Demmons is a writer and editor for the Birmingham News ~ he writes daily and weekly auto racing columns ranging from NASCAR to open wheel to Formula One, local tracks and more... you can read Doug's columns online at ALABAMA MOTORSPORTS
Follow Doug on Twitter: @dougdemmons
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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