NASCAR Fans Worldwide Flock to St. Louis Metro Area for Debut Race Events | Business

There’s more to a NASCAR event than a single race. Casual fans may not be familiar with the festivities, but between live music performances, fan gatherings and the Sunday showdown, a “NASCAR weekend” occupies multiple days of fun for all involved.

In early June, the World Wide Technology Raceway hosted its first-ever NASCAR Cup Series event, the Enjoy Illinois 300, only a few miles east of St. Louis, in Madison, Illinois. The weekend’s festivities attracted nearly 100,000 people to the metro area.

“It was fantastic,” says Chris Blair, the raceway’s general manager and executive vice president. “The feedback we’ve received from the industry, whether it was the drivers or the race fans who were so happy at such an entertaining weekend, shows that we accomplished a goal, and that was to deliver a show, not just a race.”

The Enjoy Illinois 300 festivities kicked off on June 2 with a Fan Fest at Ballpark Village and culminated on June 5 with a thrilling race won by driver Joey Logano. During the extended weekend, the metro area also hosted the Confluence Festival, a concert event held in conjunction with the race, which welcomed such acts as rapper Nelly, country music star Cole Swindell and country music group Old Dominion.

Another weekend highlight included the pre-race rendition of the national anthem, which was performed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and St. Louis native Kennedy Holmes, a former contestant on season 15 of “The Voice” reality TV singing competition.

“A lot of people didn’t know what to expect because this was the first time many of the Cup Series drivers had raced here,” Blair says. “A lot of the fans were saying it’s a great race. The CEO of NASCAR, Jim France, even called Curtis Francois, the owner and CEO of World Wide Technology Raceway, and gave him an A+. When he’s giving us an A+, it’s pretty special.”

Big-time events like the Enjoy Illinois 300 also mean big business for St. Louis and its surrounding municipalities. Pre-event estimates from a Maryville University study projected the race weekend would bring around $60 million into the metro area. Based on the high turnout, Blair and his team anticipate the actual impact exceeded the initial prediction.

Organizers’ records indicate fans traveled from 49 states, four Canadian provinces and five countries outside of North America. (Blair says he’s still searching the data to find someone who attended from the lone missing state, Rhode Island.) In other words, people from all over the world traveled to the metro area to eat in its restaurants, enjoy its attractions, stay in its hotels and take in a world-class racing event, ultimately providing a big boost to the local economy.

“If you take a look at that one event weekend – in addition to our IndyCar race and 300 other events we do over the course of the year – our reach is well over $100 million in economic impact,” Blair estimates.

Blair confirmed that the Enjoy Illinois 300 will return next year, likely the first weekend of June 2023.

“It was a big hospitality moment,” he says. “It was one of those things that even if people don’t like NASCAR, we’re all proud of where we’re from and what we do. That says something about the people that live here and make the city work.”