NASCAR’s visit to St. Louis deemed to be a success for the second year in a row

Build it and they will come - a popular saying that's been around for years. But how true is it, and does it actually work? Well for the folks in Madison, Ill., it did - even if it took 25 years. Built in the late 90’s as a chance to bring a different type of sport to the Midwest, World Wide Technology Raceway (Was formerly Gateway International Raceway) was one of many tracks sprung up in hopes for the NASCAR Cup Series to come through town.

But after several years with stand alone events with the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, their day in NASCAR’s glory days never came. In fact, Gateway quit hosting races from 2010 through 2013, and even was closed in 2012. But those days are over, and now WWT Raceway is proof that you can learn from mistakes and can redeem yourself.

As for the drivers, they say they love coming to the St. Louis region.

“I spent a lot of time here in the off season dirt racing in the dome,” stated Justin Haley, who scored his first ever NASCAR Truck Series win here at Gateway in 2019, “I thought that was fun. I feel like there's a lot of good dirt tracks around here that I've raced before, so I enjoy it. I mean, I got my first truck win here, so I'm probably a little biased on liking it.”

NASCAR Rookie Ty Gibbs told Nevada Daily Mail, “I like coming to Gateway and the St. Louis area. My family was involved with some business here in the past, so it's cool to come back. I really love the track here back when I scored two ARCA wins here, so it's fun to come back. I really enjoy this place.”

The track hosted its first NASCAR Cup Series date last year, and has sold out of tickets for its first two events, but what about the racing product? Is the on track product for the fans that sold out 60,000 seats any good? That’s a touchy subject. If you look at WWT Raceway from above, it looks very similar to the famed Darlington Raceway, a track that has provided great racing for the past 50 years. But WWT Raceway is unique because it’s a very f;at track with only nine and 11 degrees of banking on each turn. It really races more like a road course, and even requires drivers to shift entering and exiting turns.

So what's the problem? The problem is that the NexGen car introduced in 2022 is very good at road courses and flat tracks. When a car is good, that means the car handles well and the drivers usually don’t have any issues with how the car is driving. While that may sound good, it means the cars won’t make any mistakes, and will usually lead to single file racing and boring races where no issues or natural wrecks will happen. If that keeps happening, the 60,000 fans at WWT Raceway this past Sunday will not show up due to boring races.

What is the solution? Nothing as of yet has solved the issue, but there could be changes in the off season that help the on track racing better for the NASCAR Cup Series.

At the end of the day though, the St. Louis Market is a market that NASCAR needs. Hopefully the fans will stick around for better racing at World Wide Technology Raceway.