Smith, SMI in negotiations to build race tracks in Qatar (cont'd)

It is a wealthy country, with the International Monetary Fund stating last year it had the highest GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita in the world. With a modest population estimated at 1.4 million by the United Nations in 2009, there are questions about who would fill the seats at the race tracks. By comparison, the population of the greater metropolitan area of Charlotte, N.C., where many NASCAR race teams are located, is estimated at between 1.7 million and 1.8 million.

But Smith said the preliminary plan is to have each track seat no more than 40,000 and that he has been informed the Emir has a unique plan in mind for filling them.

Looking overseas

George Gillett, co-owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, will collaborate with a Saudi Arabian prince about stock-car racing in the Middle East.

• Complete story
• Gillett addresses the rumors

"They said no more than 40,000 [at each track]. They don't want a lot of seats," Smith said. "This is kind of strange to us -- to you and I -- but they said they probably would give all the tickets away. I said, 'You're not doing this to make money?' They said, 'Oh, no, no. We're doing this for our people.' I said, 'You don't want to make money? Well, OK, whatever.'

"They don't need to make money. They make all the money they need with natural gas, and oil, I guess."

One source speculated that if the tracks are built, they likely would all be part of the same complex -- much in the same way as the 1,300-acre, SMI-owned Las Vegas Motor Speedway compound includes not only the 1.5-mile oval major NASCAR events are run on, but also a .375-mile paved oval called The Bullring, a half-mile clay oval called The Dirt Track, a 2.4-mile road course and even a quarter-mile drag strip.

Smith said only that details are still being worked out and that the preliminary plans call for the tracks to be "within the same vicinity" along a coastal area in Qatar.

"We're incorporating the waterfront there and everything else," Smith said. "It will be a great showcase for the country. I think we'll get it done. I just wish we had more to report to you at this time."

Smith said this venture is in no way connected to the recent interest shown by George Gillett, majority owner of Richard Petty Motorsports, in eventually helping develop a Middle Eastern stock-car series. But it does underscore the fact that NASCAR-types are beginning to think globally -- specifically, Middle Eastern -- when it comes to selling their sport and building future fan bases.

"It's one of only three places in the world right now that have any money," conceded Humpy Wheeler, former president of Lowe's Motor Speedway who now runs his motorsports consulting business, The Wheeler Company. Wheeler said he had not heard that Smith, his former boss at LMS, was looking to build in Qatar -- but did say that Qatar was one of the few countries in the world right now with the kind of money it would take to spend on such an ambitious project. He said Russia and "some Pacific Rim countries" were the only others currently possessing the wherewithal to spend that kind of money.

"Everyone else is still in the grip of the global economic downturn," Wheeler said.

Gillett inadvertently caused a minor uproar last month when it was announced that Richard Petty Motorsports had entered into a "commercial collaboration" agreement with F6, a leading Saudi Arabia-based sports management firm.

The Saudi firm, founded and led by Saudi Arabian Prince Faisal bin Fahad bin Abdullah Al Saud, will work with Gillett's team "to explore business opportunities" in soccer, stock-car racing and interactive media in Saudi Arabia. A few days after the announcement, prior to a race at Kansas Speedway, Gillett explained further that he believes the Middle East is ripe for the development of a stock-car racing series. (Continued)