The battle for Arlington Airport begins?

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 20:38:15 -0600, Mike Wanninger
wrote:

So don't expect a lot of races. In the first year of the track, you will get
maybe one truck race weekend and one Busch race weekend. That will be 4-6 hours
on a Friday or Saturday. And most likely on tow different weekends. Once you
get a big race in another 3-4 years, a CUP event, they will combine two races
over two weekends. So you will see one weekend with a Friday or Saturday truck
race and a Saturday Busch race - and I would not except either event to draw
over 30,000 people. Then one weekend with a combined truck or Busch race and
then the CUP race on Sunday. Because of the combined weekend, the truck/Busch
race may have over 30,000 fans. AND THAT'S IT. NOTHING ELSE.

Thanks for the insight, Mike. I do have a couple of additional questions:

I appreciate your comments on how NASCAR likes general aviation, and how
most tracks have a nearby airport that the drivers and crew use. The
problem is, how many of those are uncontrolled fields, like Arlington? The
TSA will allow the track to be overflown by aircraft under the control of
ATC, but that won't be the case at Arlington.

Second, does that mean these facilities are unused 50 weekends out of the
year? One comment I read (think it was on a local group) said that the
track facilities are usually rented out for other activities most weekends.
If that's the case, we must remember that a TFR isn't triggered by the
actual number people in attendance, it's triggered by the total capacity of
the venue. So if they have a zucchini festival on August 28th, Arlington
will be shut down, even if there are only 500 people at the track.

A final comment...it's all well and good that the drivers, owners, and
crews like a nearby GA airport. However, the one day they probably WON'T
need it is race day. Which, of course, is the day it'd be shut down.

Ron Wanttaja