For Bruton Smith, the CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc., the highway to success is always under construction.

One might wonder what his next conquest is after building a palatial drag strip in Concord, N.C., and succeeding in procuring two national events on the 24-race 2010 NHRA schedule.

The fact a lot of dirt has been moving on the grounds of Loudon, N.H., has created some buzz among folks wondering if Smith might be in the initial thought processes of pulling off a northeastern version of zMax Dragway.

It’s On Bruton Smith’s Radar, But Just A Little Blip

For Bruton Smith, the CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc., the highway to success is always under construction.

One might wonder what his next conquest is after building a palatial drag strip in Concord, N.C., and succeeding in procuring two national events on the 24-race 2010 NHRA schedule.

The fact a lot of dirt has been moving on the grounds of Loudon, N.H., has created some buzz among folks wondering if Smith might be in the initial thought processes of pulling off a northeastern version of zMax Dragway.

Smith’s SMI team and a multitude of contractors built arguably one of the finest drag racing facilities in a span of less than six months just across the highway from Lowe's Motor Speedway.

“A lot of people there have approached me about building a track in New Hampshire,” Smith confirmed. “There are some of those who live in that area who say, ‘we don’t want that’, whatever that means. We will never say no.”

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is 85 miles north and west from Boston, according to Smith.  

Currently the New England market is largely served by New England Dragway, an IHRA national event facility located in Epping, New Hampshire. Though the track has been considered a possibility for a possible NHRA event in the past, the logistics of facility property size and the financial investment required to bring the NED to NHRA specs squelched that plan.

That doesn’t mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that the NHRA has given up on the idea. As was the case with garnering the Charlotte market, Smith might provide the best opportunity for the NHRA to tap the potential goldmine of the Boston market.

John Force believes the NHRA needs to be there.

“You look at that area and we race south of New York in Englishtown,” Force added. “We used to race in Epping and that is a huge market – Boston. There ought to be a race track there.”

Currently the financial markets might not make building a new drag strip feasible in this challenging economy. But, who knows what the future might bring?

“We’re not ready for that yet,” Smith said.

His focus is now on making the second date, next spring, at zMax a sellout similar to the NHRA Carolina Nationals in September. The success of the first date is what inspired him to push for the second date.

“We wanted to see how successful the first one was going to be before we asked for a second one,” Smith said. “When it was an overwhelming success and everyone made a lot of money with it, it didn’t take a lot of selling to get Tom Compton to agree.”

That’s why two sellout dates a season might inspire a new gold exploration, preferably in New Hampshire.

 “I’m not going to say never, just that it’s not on the front-burner,” Smith said with a smile.

A smile that bore a striking resemblance to the one he flashed when  asked about the possibility he might build a strip on the grounds of Lowe’s Motor Speedway two years ago.
 

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