Historical Motorsports Stories writes:

"TRAC: The Future of NASCAR?"

Posted by nascarman on June 14, 2018

Viewed 2876 times Tweet Team Spending Caps, Revenue Sharing, Playoffs, a Championship Race, Fuel-Injected Spec Engines, Composite Body Materials



All of these have either been suggested for NASCAR's future or implemented recently. But look into the past and you'll see a racing series proposed this 15 years ago. While that series never competed, modern NASCAR looks increasingly similar to its ideas. Yes, this is the ill-fated TRAC Series.







Team Racing Auto Circuit, or TRAC, was an auto racing series formed by Team Sports Entertainment Inc. During a press conference in uptown Charlotte on May 15, 2001, TRAC was revealed. The series was born just weeks after the inaugural XFL season ended, riding a wave of optimism in sports that new series could succeed amid existing ones. Its goal was to become fully-operational by 2003.



"Team Racing Auto Circuit (TRAC) is a newly formed national motor sports league. By combining the best qualities of traditional motor sports with the best attributes of traditional team sports leagues, TRAC is creating a new and exciting form of stock car racing designed to reach the mainstream sports fan. Initially, the league will consist of ten, three-car teams that will be located in major U.S. cities with motor sports venues in the area. Each team will represent its city or region and will participate in a season long schedule of races, in addition to an all-star event and concluding with a season-ending championship race."



The series wanted to bring regional passion into motorsports, breeding on geographical rivalries and making race teams into "home teams" for fans. It was the team that won TRAC races, not individual drivers, and each organization had at least three drivers giving them a chance to win. The series would be split into two conferences, National and American, with the best teams in each conference competing in a season-ending championship race. The teams were expected to be located in:

*Atlanta

*Chicago

*Denver

*Indianapolis

*Los Angeles

*Las Vegas ("Las Vegas Rollers")

*North Carolina ("Carolina Storm")

*Seattle

*Tennessee ("Tennessee Express")

*Texas ("Texas Torch")



Unlike any other form of auto racing, all teams were franchises of TRAC and would share in its revenue. Because teams got money from ticket sales and television revenue, car sponsorships weren't necessary. Instead, the cars would be covered in the team names and the home city, similar to football and basketball teams are. There would be some sponsorship on cars, but not to the extent seen in NASCAR.



Bruton Smith's SMI-owned tracks committed early to hold TRAC races. Charlotte, Texas, Las Vegas, Bristol, Sonoma, and Atlanta announced they would host races in 2003. It was reported that the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway might also on the schedule.



TRAC Website



TRAC's board of directors included former president of CBS and co-founder of CNN, Robert Wussler; former Ford Motorsports director, Michael Kranefuss; and Clemson NCAA-champion football coach, Danny Ford. Cale Yarborough was also a board member and served as TRAC's National Spokesman. The series' corporate headquarters were in Huntersville, North Carolina, right across the street from Joe Gibbs Racing.



TRAC made it clear they had no intentions of taking anything away from NASCAR. It was positioned as a way to grow auto racing as a whole by presenting it in a different way. Perhaps non-racing fans would like aspects of TRAC and eventually be attracted to NASCAR as well.



"We don't consider (NASCAR) competition at all," TRAC president Jon Pritchett said. "We want to broaden the fan base. We have no interest in alienating NASCAR or its fans or stealing its market shares. I don't think we're going to be a breeding ground for NASCAR. We just want to become the next major sports league."





TRAC Cars



It was announced the series would use Dodge Vipers, Ford Mustangs, and Chevy Corvettes as race cars. Oddly enough, at the time of the unveiling, Ford publicly said they had not authorized the use of the Mustang in the series. GM wasn't providing support either.



Riley & Scott Race Car Engineering was contracted to build an ambitious 100 cars for the 2003 season. The teams would get the cars from TRAC and just maintain them. With equal cars, races would be decided by strategy and driving skill.



Technically speaking, the TRAC cars were somewhere between a NASCAR stock cars and Trans-Am sports cars. Testing began in April 2002 with drivers Andy Hillenburg, Tony Ave, and Boris Said. At Atlanta Motor Speedway, the Viper's fastest lap was 186.666 mph, only 5 mph slower than that year's Winston Cup pole speed.



Car features:

*Manufacturers with matching drag/down force

*Bodies with lift-off prevention systems

*Bodies of a composite material

*Tubular steel chassis

*Sealed, fuel-injection engines

*Air Jacks

*Digital dash

*Weigh approximately 2800 lbs.

*Center lock wheel nuts



TRAC Driver Application (pdf)



Unfortunately in August 2002, it was reported that TRAC still hadn't found enough money to pay for the cars. When they stopped paying, Riley & Scott stopped building them. But just a few days later, TRAC announced they had gotten $2.5 million in funding from Godley Morris Group LLC. and it appeared the series was back on the right trac. But in November 2002, news broke that TRAC couldn't find a TV partner and therefore pushed back its inaugural season to 2004.



On April 15, 2003, TRAC emerged out of the ashes with new life. They announced that ESPN signed a two-year contract to televise all TRAC races beginning in May 2004. The races would be aired on either ESPN or ESPN2 on Saturday afternoons or evenings and would be no longer than 2 hours in length. The series would consist of 13 races, ending with a championship race in mid-August. Each SMI track would get two races, and while not officially announced, it appeared Las Vegas would also hold the championship race.



TRAC also announced that only six teams would compete in the first season, but each would field four cars. They anticipated the schedule and team count would grow as the series went on. But as the year went on, they still couldn't find groups to buy team franchises.



In August 2003, TRAC admitted the series wouldn't succeed and cancelled plans for 2004. Eventually Team Sports was sued by its investors for failure to create a series.



While TRAC never reached the track, a lot of its ideas did. Fuel injected engines, composite bodies, digital dashes, and a championship deciding final race are all parts of modern NASCAR. And one of TRAC's major aspects was revenue sharing between the sanctioning body and its teams. The Race Team Alliance and Charters seek to do just that in the near future. While TRAC never existed, they may have shown where the future of auto racing needed to go.



References:

Jayski.com

TRACzone.com



See Also: Reddit: The Story of TRAC



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