WGI's Printup wants earlier race start

With a third consecutive sellout of grandstand seating, Watkins Glen International has a very good thing going with its annual Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race. The track's president wants to keep it that way.

While he categorized this year's three-day event as "an awesome weekend" outside of a storm that canceled Friday's planned Fan Fest, the ever-latening start time of Sunday's featured race has him concerned. The green flag went off at 3:18 p.m. after a 2:49 race start last year. That followed scheduled starts of 1:19 in 2014 and 2:18 in 2015.

Fans let him know about their frustrations Saturday morning during a coffee and donuts meet and greet. Printup relayed those concerns to NASCAR and pulled no punches Sunday night after watching Martin Truex Jr. win the I Love New York 355 at The Glen for his fourth victory of the season.

"Absolutely ridiculous for our fans and I have no problem saying that," Printup said of the start time. "When you’re doing what we’re doing – and this is not an arrogant statement – you can stand on a pedestal and say we’re selling out and then I’ve got 1,000 out of 4,000 the other day telling me they’re not coming back because of start time, if it’s that late. That’s concerning because it means we’re not selling out if that happens.

"I talked to NASCAR today about it. I told them my feedback and we’ll go from there."

Fans with drives of three hours or much longer don't like the prospect of getting home even later, Printup said. This year's 90-lap race finished at 5:29 p.m. in an extremely brisk 2 hours and 7 minutes, with only one caution beyond the two built-in stage stops. Races at Watkins Glen that have seen red-flag stoppages in recent years have lasted around three hours.

NASCAR officials were not available for comment Monday. However, NASCAR President Brent Dewar addressed start times last month in an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, with his comments appearing in a Yahoo.com story.

"We did some later start times this year and some in the industry have not liked that, but it was important to interact with our West Coast audience," Dewar said. "Still our largest audience is California, and 1 o'clock starts are too early for them on the West Coast. So we're trying to find the right balance of that. But yes, I think you'll see more innovation to make it a win-win for the industry. We will do it together as an industry. It won't be unilateral on NASCAR's part."

The lack of cautions also meant there were no late-race restarts that have helped produce some memorable finishes at the track. Instead, there was suspense over which drivers would have enough fuel to maintain a late lead.

"The fans were great. Everybody was great, the stakeholders, NASCAR," Printup said. "The drivers just knocked it out. And Martin, what a race, when you sit there and look at the strategy and what’s going on and how they had to battle out that last lap. He obviously had enough gas because he did enough burnouts for us and put a lot of rubber in the air, but that was just an awesome weekend."

NASCAR and its tracks do not release official attendance numbers, but the grandstand sellout represented close to 39,000 seats. Printup said there were another 15,000 to 16,000 general admission tickets sold, in addition to several thousand campers.

When asked about the potential to add grandstands, Printup said it's possible they could add pockets of seating but nothing major. He said his own initial desire to add grandstands turned into the party decks that were added this year in the Esses and at Turn 11 (Turn 7 for NASCAR).

"I think it’s the better way to go because they’re now social atmospheres," Printup said. "Grandstands are very private in terms of seating capacity and socialization. That’s why we’re going to – at least the road course from our point of view – these big, open areas that create more atmosphere and you can go sit in the corner and talk to people around a round table, have a bottle of water, glass of wine or whatever. That’s where we’re going. We’re going to stay that route."

Printup said some fans expressed concerns about missing out on the extra day of Cup competition after practices for this race were moved from Friday to Saturday, pushing qualifying to Sunday before the race. Printup said the change takes away a day of television coverage and media attention but otherwise said "the two-day was fine."

Watkins Glen's Friday schedule still included practices for Saturday's XFINITY Series' Zippo 200 at The Glen, along with practice, qualifying and racing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Series.

Drivers such as Ty Dillon and 2016 race winner Denny Hamlin liked the shortened weekend and Sunday qualifying, a NASCAR test that took place at Pocono Raceway two weeks ago, Watkins Glen and will happen again in October at Martinsville. For drivers and their teams, it means less time at the track.

"I think it’s 48 hours of almost non-stop racing action at the racetrack, which is very good," Hamlin said Saturday. "There’s a lot of times when you have three-day shows and nothing’s on track for a while and it just kind of gets stagnant, but I definitely like the shows running through and something on the track nearly at all hours of the day, so it gives fans something to watch. I definitely enjoy it. I’m sure the team guys enjoy it as well."

Fan Fest was designed by NASCAR in part to provide a Cup Series presence at tracks without Friday racing, but the crowd gathered at the Jack Daniel's Summer Stage at Watkins Glen was told to seek shelter about 10 minutes before its scheduled start because of an impending thunderstorm. The storm ended up leading to the cancellation of scheduled driver appearances from Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Clint Bowyer, Erik Jones and Dillon. A concert by Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real was able to go on after a delay of about two hours.

"We’re a test, so you want to get your test results and we didn’t get the results," Printup said. "Obviously nobody’s fault but the weather. We disappointed some fans, but we got the concert in, which obviously was our main goal.

"It is what it is. Hopefully we’ll get another shot next year and we’ll make the Fan Fest even bigger and better, learning from other tracks now."

When the track announced through its Twitter account the driver appearances were canceled, Twitter user Bill Kingston responded, "This is why they need to go back to qualifying the day before race day. Fan Fest in place of Cup practice on Friday is a failure."

Hamlin said he thinks most fans would rather have an up-close presence with drivers on Fridays than practices.

"It’s a step in the right direction," he said. "I think some of the Fan Fest stuff has been really good. I haven’t been a part of one yet, but I see on Twitter the reactions to it and I see a lot of talk about it. You could argue, 'What gives fans more of an experience? Us going around the racetrack or them actually being able to engage with us?' I would think it would be the latter."

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