Jerry Carroll has competition. Therefore, he must keep pleasing The Man.
Carroll has enlisted all the right movers and shakers in planning his new $120 million superspeedway for Northern Kentucky. But with the ultimate goal a NASCAR Winston Cup race, and with at least four other U.S. cities hoping to build tracks, Carroll has his foot in the biggest door of all - that of NASCAR President Bill France.
''Bill France is God, for us,'' Carroll said this week. ''We're walking tiptoes and doing everything we can to impress him. He's the one who determines whether we get a race.''
Carroll, then, will be sure to watch Fields and Towers, an ESPN special that airs tonight at 7:30. The show, second in a five-part ESPN series celebrating the 50th anniversary of NASCAR, covers the 1959 opening of Daytona International Speedway through the current boom in track building and buying.
New tracks are being discussed in Kansas City, Atlantic City, Sacramento and Nashville, along with Carroll's venue in Gallatin County, Ky., about 35 miles southwest of Cincinnati.
All hope to board the motorsports bandwagon. Auto racing attendance in North America increased 9.3 percent in 1997, according to an annual report compiled by Goodyear. And Winston Cup leads the way, with an average attendance of 190,355 (up 9 percent) per event.
NASCAR spokesman John Griffin said that, with 36 Winston Cup weekends scheduled this year, the series is not likely to add more races. Nor will it split into two divisions to satisfy demand for more races, he said.
New tracks may have to settle for Busch Grand National races and Craftsman Truck races. There are now 31 Busch dates and 27 Truck races.
Carroll will get his truck race right away. Plans are to move an existing race from Louisville Motor Speedway, which Carroll bought last month.
Carroll and his group, which includes four other major investors, have gotten two audiences with NASCAR head France. The most recent session was last week, a few days after Carroll announced plans to break ground on his track.
''Bill France said our site is fine and the market is fine,'' Carroll said. ''He told us again that we would not get a Winston race until the track is built, and he's not promising that. But he didn't say no, either.''
Carroll credits Bill Moss, who designed Talladega Superspeedway and will coordinate Carroll's project, as the reason his group got an audience with France. The Enquirer was unable to reach France for this story.
Turfway Park owner Carroll, 53, has done bigger projects than his new speedway But the speedway could be the toughest development of his career, he said.
''That's because of the risk of building for something you don't even have (Winston race) and are not even promised,'' he said. ''But you have to build the track first.''
Carroll said he hoped to break ground in May, but said it could be as late as September. He hopes to open in 2000.
Sign of the times: The speedway could become the first race track named after a corporation. Carroll said he has had negotiations with a company, which he did not identify, about naming rights.
