Kentucky Speedway officials knew they'd have empty seats

Kentucky Speedway general manager Mark Simendinger said that NASCAR not only no longer provides attendance figures, but the sanctioning body doesn't allow tracks to formulate their own either.

So there will be no fan count from last Saturday's Quaker State 400 Sprint Cup Series race — the fourth at the Sparta, Ky. track.

"There was a good crowd, though," Simendinger said Monday. "Clearly, this is a big, big place, so we knew there were going to be some empty seats."

Most bare bleachers were in the corners, near Turn 4 and Turn 1, with the stands around the start/finish line full. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported estimates of 60-80,000 fans on hand, including those in the infield.

Kentucky Speedway seats 107,000 and hasn't sold out since a traffic disaster in 2011 prevented an estimated 10,000 fans from making it to the track for the race, instead sitting in snarled traffic on Interstate 71.

In 2012, Kentucky Speedway dealt with intense heat, and in 2013, the event was delayed until Sunday due to rain.

This year, there were afternoon showers that forced track officials to dry the surface and move their prerace concert to the infield. Also, a travel bus broke down at the entrance to a parking lot.

"Other than that, cars flowed in smoothly," Simendinger said. "Incoming and outgoing traffic were, for a crowd of this magnitude, about as good as it gets. We're getting scary good now at how we do stuff."

Simendinger added another crowd metric, saying merchandise sales at the track were "off the charts. If we hadn't gotten a few rain showers before the race during day, we would have broken every record known to man. Our vendors were thrilled."

NASCAR visits Kentucky Speedway once more this year for the Sept. 20 Nationwide Series VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300.

Jonathan Lintner can be reached at (502) 582-4199. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanLintner.