Marketing the Auto Race: What We Can Learn from the Spectators

Abstract

In 1988, the Texas World Speedway (TWS), closed its doors because of its inability to draw spectators. After spending over 1 million dollars to upgrade the entire facility, the facility reopened. In meeting with TWS officials it was discovered they had no director or marketing or specific marketing strategies. Approval was given by the management of TWS to conduct the study after discussing the benefits to the speedway.

After reviewing several similar studies, an instrument was developed. In analyzing the data, frequency distributions of attendance in the past 3 years at TWS were presented in terms of the spectator's gender, age, educational background, annual income per household, driving mileage to event, and frequency of watching auto race on television. Chi-square was used to determine the significance of relationships between the number of races attended at TWS and each respective factor related to the spectator.

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