The rumblings that Mexico City was going to be removed from the schedule began late last week. As the weekend came to an end the rumor became a reality. NASCAR had decided after four seasons and plummeting attendance figures to end their trek south of the border.
Personally I have never heard so much excitement over a change in the schedule. The safety concerns and logistical nightmare made it a trip that has become increasingly less worth while (and popular). Teams preface their visits by telling their employees not to leave the hotel compounds and to of course stay away from the tap water. This though is not the worst of it.
I know of at least one team going into a local bar, ordering a round of beers and when the check came around it totaled thousands of dollars. They were told if they did not pay the check the police would be called. I have heard of bus loads of team members being stopped by local police demanding payoffs. This of course is the norm within the country. Crew members were not even immune inside chain restaurants. I know of people going into Hard Rock Cafe, paying for their meal with a higher denomination bill and not getting any change back. They were told no change would be made.
These stories are just a few of the many. Some are better, some worse, but the common theme is that it was not the safest trip. These teams are seen as well funded, soft targets and people took advantage.
Perhaps one of the more bizarre things about the journey to Mexico were the military escorts the transporters were given into Mexico City. The teams would be split up into several large groups and move together through the country. This was of course to avoid kidnapping from drug traffickers and other opportunists that roam pretty much unchecked through the northern part of Mexico.
Beyond the safety though, the cost of traveling to Mexico far outweighed any benefit. The teams incurred the brunt of the expense as they had to put up dozens of crew members in expensive hotels (you can not stay in a Best Western), and pay to transport their equipment the thousands of miles to Mexico City. Granted, while traveling to Mexico is not as expensive or as labor intensive as traveling to Japan (if you did not know NASCAR traveled to the Suzuka in ‘96, ‘97 and Motegi in ‘98), it is still an unnecessary expense.
On top of that, attendance numbers have dropped by 40,000 in just four seasons (I would venture to say the novelty has worn off). I can not imagine NASCAR is seeing much benefit from the event. NASCAR’s goal was to raise the presence of the sport in Latin America, but I really am not sure how effective that was; I think the dwindling attendance numbers speak for themselves.
The removal of the track from the schedule is one of the better decisions NASCAR has made in a while. I will miss the second road course on the Nationwide circuit, but I think there are other, better options out there. Mexico was certainly an interesting venture but its time was up.
Have you been to the Mexico City race? Any interesting stories from that event or your trip? Let us know.
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on Jul 30th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
The main reason I see that NASCAR has dropped the MX City event is that the major sponsor for that race has changed its funding to be centered around the NASCAR Mexico series that is growing like crazy. I am the only American racing in the Corona series. I do not have any problems traveling across the border to the races on the NASCAR Mexico series. Infact they treat us like a rock stars. I was in the convoy from Laredo to Mexico City and we recieved a first class escort from the border all the way to the race track in MX City. This escort traveled about 85mph the whole way and saved time at the toll roads and through the different cities to get to MX City. I do not think the Latin America community has lost interest in NASCAR it has just shifted to their own series that is in its 2nd year and growing like crazy. The opportunity is In Mexico. It is the best opportunity I have ever seen in racing. You can check out my web site at http://www.team8racing.com or the nascar site at http://www.nascarmexico.com
on Jul 30th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Stan, I looked at your web-site and the NASCAR Mexico web-site. The only problem I see is the NASCAR web-site is written in spanish only. So not being able to read spanish it makes it very difficult to read. (LOL) So I’ll take your word for it. Good luck racing south of the border.
on Aug 5th, 2008 at 12:19 am
The first two years a lot of the crowd was papered, in other words the tickets were free.
This past season, the attendance dropped off significantly.
It’s a shame that the Busch teams spent so much money over the past few years on this waste of time.