This past weekend Dover International Speedway played host to race three in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, and once again the Monster Mile saw a decrease in attendance. The drop in attendance is a continuing theme at almost all NASCAR tracks, but the decline has been rapid for Dover.
Yesterday's attendance was estimated at 83,000. The attendance for Dover's may race was 82,000. Last September the attendance was 88,000. The grandstand capacity cap for Dover is estimated at 140,000. The average attendance for the last six races is 91,830. The average attendance for the six races prior to that was 139,670 according to Nate Ryan of USA Today.
83,000 people at a NASCAR race is still a good crowd. It is a great crowd at most other race tracks. But it is a terrible crowd for a race track with 140,000 seats.
As someone who has been going to Dover since 1997, I have seen the race track build tens of thousands of seats year after year, because the track would constantly be full. But now I'm seeing the crowds get smaller and smaller and it is disheartening. There was a time when I would literally be sandwiched in between people all race long. Yesterday I sat in a row all by myself.
There is a shuttle bus service that goes to the track from the Blue Hen Corporate Mall, which is about 10 minutes south of the race track. Up until about five years ago, the entire parking lot would be full. They would then start to park cars behind the building and sometimes even in the grass field behind the building as well. Yesterday, only a quarter of the lot was full, which is basically just five rows of cars.
The decline in attendance at Dover is stunning to me because of how quickly it started. At the race in September of 2008, there was a crowd of about 125,000 people. The next race in Dover in May of 2009, the crowd dropped to barely above 100,000. Since then every race at Dover has seen a crowd below 95,000 people.
It seems that Dover has finally decided that enough is enough. The race track has restructed their ticket pricing structure for next season. If you buy tickets by a certain date your $95 seats will be $75. If you miss that date, but still buy your seats three weeks in advance of the race then you get them for $85. The price structuring is similar across all levels of seats.
Something needed to be done to end the decline in attendance at the Monster Mile. Hopefully the price restructuring will lead to an increase in attendance next year, otherwise the future of racing in Dover will be very grim.
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