By: Kyle Brandt – Contributing Writer

After nearly eleven years of waiting, Saturday night’s Inaugural Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway was meant to be the culmination of a long battle filled with lawsuits, growing pains and disappointment for race fans in the Blue Grass State. But on a night that was supposed to be special for everyone involved, the track’s first Sprint Cup event was ruined before the green flag ever waved.

All fans of NASCAR, and those employed within it are well aware of the unusual volume of traffic that descends upon tracks each and every weekend of the season. However, the traffic in Kentucky and what stemmed from it are something the sport had never seen before- and won’t soon forget.

On Friday night, the first glimpse of an actual problem with the traffic at Kentucky Speedway took place during the Nationwide Series event. Although most fans were able to make it to their seats in time for the green flag, reports started pouring through social media websites that there were some fans that were still trying to get on to speedway property with 50 laps to go.

In reaction to Friday night’s problems, officials at Kentucky Speedway and NASCAR advised fans planning on attending Saturday night’s Sprint Cup Series race to leave extremely early and stay late- a strategy that most NASCAR fans are used to, but not to this extent.

As Saturday morning arrived, initial traffic reports from the roads surrounding Kentucky Speedway were promising, and little to no reports of issues. As high noon approached however, things started changing and took a turn for the worse.

Fans and those employed within the sport started to report that the roads leading to the speedway, and interstate 71, which is a major route to the track, were beginning to become congested. Shortly after, it was reported that those roads had come to a stand-still, and frustration was setting in.

As the volume of vehicles continued to pour in to the roads leading to Kentucky Speedway, the stopped traffic started to become larger and larger and at one point, just a few hours before the race, traffic was reported to be backed up 20 miles or more from the speedway on interstate 71.

James Vogelsang, who made the trip from Columbus, Ohio, was able to witness the mayhem first-hand and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “I spent over three hours in traffic from (interstate) 71/75 split (to the speedway),” said Vogelsang. “It took longer to go twenty miles than it did to go from Columbus to the split.”

Stories such as James’ flooded Twitter and Facebook during Saturday afternoon.

As the traffic jam continued, drivers and those employed within the NASCAR industry took to social media sites like Twitter to report that they were having the same problem. Among them, was Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Denny Hamlin:

“Good news bad news/ bad news is I’m prolly not gonna make the drivers meeting in 3 hrs because I’m in this traffic with everyone else.Â Good news, I’m starting in the back anyway.”

With the traffic becoming more and more out of control and the start of the race grew closer, other drivers including Landon Cassill and Andy Lally announced that they too were stuck in traffic. To continue this trend, UPS had to cancel their hospitality event for the day because the bus filled with VIPs was also stuck.

With the start of the race now less than two hours away and the traffic showing no signs of improving, some fans started abandoning their vehicles on the side of the interstate and attempting to hike the rest of the way to the speedway. At the same time, other fans decided to give up hope- turning their vehicles around and heading home disappointed.

As television channel, SPEED, ended their weekly “NASCAR Raceday” program, an aerial shot of the traffic problem, now being called “car-mageddon”, was shown. TNT followed suit by also providing similar shots during the opening minutes of their hour-long pre-race show.

With more and more people becoming aware of the unfolding chaos on the roads nearby the speedway, some started to wonder if all team personnel and drivers would actually make it to the race in time for the start- and if the race would even happen at all.

As pre-race ceremonies wrapped up on Saturday evening, all drivers and most team personnel were accounted for. The race was to start as planned and without a hitch, but not everything was right in the world of Kentucky Speedway.

Although the 107,000 seats at the track appeared to be full, a large number of fans who bought tickets in advance were still stuck in traffic- some 20 or miles away from the exit to the speedway. This trend continued as the race reached halfway, but that’s when the unbelievable happened.

With fans continuing to pile in to the speedway’s property, the social media website, Twitter, erupted with reports of fans who purchased tickets in advance being sent home after battling traffic to upwards of five hours. Frustrations and anger started to reach their boiling point, as the money spent on tickets went to waste.

Although completely unfathomable, these reports were indeed true, as parking attendants started making all roads near the speedway outbound rather than inbound near the halfway point of the race- when people started leaving and heading for home to get a head start on the massive crowd.

It appeared that many people had the same idea and before the race was even over, traffic had already backed up for miles just like it did before the event. Except now, these cars would be full of tired, frustrated, and possibly intoxicated fans.

Although no major traffic accidents were reported, and most fans kept their composure, the unbelievable accounts from fans and industry employees continued to flood in- some reporting being stuck on speedway property for two or more hours.

Such was the case for Matt Kacar of Gallatin, Tennessee, who traveled to Kentucky Speedway to see his very first Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday. Kacar, who had no problems getting to the track, experienced the opposite after the race was over.

After waiting nearly two-and-a-half hours, Kacar was finally able to leave his parking lot on speedway property and started a long crawl home, that ended with him pulling in to his driveway around 5:30am/ET on Sunday morning.

“Probably not”, said Kacar after being asked whether he would return to Kentucky Speedway in the future. “Free tickets could change my mind, though!”

After the dust settles in Kentucky and everyone finally makes it home, Bruton Smith and the officials at Kentucky Speedway will have plenty of time to reflect on Saturday night’s traffic issues and make changes before the speedway’s next event one year from now.

After getting a few hours of sleep and heading to church on Sunday morning, Matt Kacar was able to reflect on Saturday night’s race and was able to offer his advice for the track.

“More parking”, said Kacar. “They added 40,000 more seats, but didn’t add any more parking. And bathrooms. It was almost a 30 minute wait to go to the bathroom.”

Circumstances such as those experienced in Kentucky Speedway are unacceptable at any track- especially those owned by Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc. who own the facility as well as tracks in highly populated cities such as Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth and Las Vegas among others.

Kentucky Speedway had an entire year to prepare for their inaugural Sprint Cup Series event, but sadly failed to do so adequately. A mistake so big, that Saturday night’s race will be remembered for the unbelievable traffic and unacceptable customer service- rather than the race they waited so long to have.

The views and opinions in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of RubbingsRacing.com or other staff members.

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Kyle Brandt is a contributing writer for RubbingsRacing.com and can be followed on Twitter for the latest NASCAR news and information: @Kyle_Brandt.