With International Speedway Corporation in the midst of a multi-year $500 million capital reinvestment plan across its venues, the company is looking to redefine the audience experience at its facilities. The company recently completed a $7 million renovation at the historic Darlington Raceway, along with a $30 million infield redevelopment project at Richmond Raceway, is launching a $50 million infield redevelopment at Talladega Superspeedway, and has a $178 million modernization project at ISM Raceway in Phoenix set to debut next month during its November race weekend. In fact, the ISM Raceway Project Powered by DC Solar marks the largest ISC redevelopment project following the completion of the $400 million Daytona International Speedway transformation in 2016.
Spearheading the charge is ISC Chief Operating Officer Joie Chitwood, who oversaw the Daytona Rising renovation project. Cynopsis asked Chitwood about the company, its strategy and lessons learned from Daytona.
Chitwood on working at ISC: For me, after leading the charge of the $400 million reimagining of the American icon of Daytona Speedway, I was promoted to Chief Operating Officer for ISC, where we have 13 motorsports properties that we manage across the country. They are all unique and different – small and big tracks; some new, some old and historic like Darlington. So it has been an exciting run for me personally. I count myself very lucky because every day in unique in motorsports.
On lessons from Daytona Rising: One key factor is the social aspect of going to events. The ability to build a venue that really engages the customer, going beyond wifi even, to the social zones within the stadium. It gets people to enjoy and share. You don’t see fans sitting for three hours shifting in their seat non-stop. They want to roam around and interact. The next generation of venue has to have a social aspect to it. From a Daytona perspective, if we had redone that property five years earlier, I don’t know if we would have clued in to that changing customer need. So when you complete Daytona, you realize that are great opportunities at our other venues.
On the overhaul of ISM Raceway, debuting next month: We had an older property in Phoenix and really wanted to be innovative and push the edge. We realized the front stretch grandstand was never going to be what we hoped it to be. So we, in essence, reversed the property, moving the start and finish line from the front stretch to the dogleg, which is in the backstretch and built a new grandstand over there. We then completely gutted the in-field, building a completely new garage, a brand new leader scoreboard, new video boards, a new pedestrian tunnel and more. Also, now, instead of sitting in the sun, you are sitting in the shade. With Phoenix, we wanted to push ourselves, and I’m really happy with how it is turning out. I think our fans will be as blown away as fans that showed up to Daytona for the first time.
On incorporating sponsors: Our sport is so different from other sports in the role that sponsors play. If you think about it, if you think about Jimmie Johnson being a champion in our sport, he doesn’t do that without Lowe’s on the side of his car. Sponsorship makes our world go round. So for us, when you design these properties and create new opportunities to engage the fan, our sponsors want the same thing. Not only from a brand perspective, from a lead generation perspective and from an activation perspective, but also from a corporate hospitality point of view. If you are going to bring your C-level executives to our event, you want to provide them with top notch entertainment and hospitality.
