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For the first time in years, sport’s biggest race struggles to fill every seat

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Reggie Jenkins stands on a corner across from the entrance outside turn four at Daytona International Speedway with a homemade sign that reads “Buy/Sell Tickets.”

The 47-year-old scalper has been working this spot in early February for almost a decade. It’s usually prime real estate as thousands of fans make their way from the adjacent parking lots into the home of the Daytona 500.  This year, though, things are different. Here it is Friday afternoon, barely 48 hours before the green flag drops in NASCAR’s Super Bowl, and business is decidedly slow.

“Usually, Friday things pick up a little,” said Jenkins, who lives in nearby Deland. “People are looking to upgrade their 500 tickets or try and pick up a couple of tickets to Saturday’s (Nationwide Series) race.”

Instead, all Jenkins appears to be working on is a sunburn.

A car stops to ask him what he’s got and when he says he’ll take $100 for grandstand tickets with a face value of $135, the car quickly pulls away.  “It’s hard to sell ’em when you know there’s so many out there,” he said.

For the first time in years, NASCAR’s biggest race is struggling to fill every seat in Daytona’s massive grandstands, part of the fallout from the nation’s economic collapse.

While NASCAR officials still expect a sellout, they had to cut select ticket prices just days before the race to get there.

“This is a fixture in American culture — this sport,” NASCAR chairman Brian France said last month. “We have seen tough times before. We’re actually optimistic about ’09 for a lot of reasons.”

So is Richard Beverly. The 38-year-old Beverly started coming to the 500 with his father 20 years ago. He’s only missed a handful of races since, and didn’t opt to change plans even as the economy crumbled. He watched Nationwide Series qualifying on Friday afternoon from a deck tucked against the lake in Daytona’s infield.

Beverly bought his tickets for Speedweeks almost a year ago and decided to cut short his vacation last summer to save up a little scratch for sunny Florida in early February.

“How does it get better than this?” said Beverly, who lives in Atlanta. “If this was the only vacation I knew I was going to get all year, I’d still do it.”

Just at a lesser price. Beverly is hardly alone. Things have been decidedly sleepy around Daytona this week, as fans seem to have saved up for the weekend rather than take an entire week off work to ease a case of Spring Fever.

While signs outside nearly every hotel and restaurant along A1A a few miles east of the track read “Welcome race fans,” they almost all have a neon “vacancy” light right next them — something unheard of a few years ago.

“We didn’t decide until last month to come down,” said Jason Martin, 26 from Fayetteville, N.C. “I thought we’d have to get a room in Orlando or something but we found something in Ormond Beach and it wasn’t like a million dollars.”

Martin’s hotel didn’t even require a minimum stay, usually common practice whenever NASCAR is in town.

The bargains aren’t limited to the hotels. NASCAR cut the prices of some of its most popular concession items. You can pick up an all-beef hot dog for $3 or grab four “Fast Franks” dogs for $10.

Beer, liquor and other track staples are still upward of $5, but there’s a simple solution if that’s too expensive: bring your own cooler.

“What other sport allows you to do that?” said Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage, who joined other track operators at Daytona this week to do publicity for the upcoming 36-week season.

Gossage pointed out that fans who decide to camp at his track for either of its two races can stay for as little as $75 for the entire week, cheaper than one night in most hotels.

Every track, it seems, has a plan:

• Officials at Atlanta Motor Speedway are offering $95 tickets for its March 8 Sprint Cup race for the face value of whatever car number wins the 500. A similar plan a year ago was limited to the first 1,000 tickets sold. This year’s plan will be for any fan who wants to pick up tickets so long as they do it by Tuesday afternoon. Maybe fans should be rooting for the No. 00 Toyota driven by David Reutimann or the No. 1 Chevy of pole-sitter Martin Truex Jr.
• Denny Hamlin’s team is giving away 12 free tickets to the race at Sonoma in June, and Hamlin is giving away at least four tickets to every Sprint Cup race this season to fans who apply through his Web site.
• Indianapolis Motor Speedway dropped select tickets along the backstretch for July’s 400-mile Sprint Cup race to $45. The move is an apology of sorts for last year’s public-relations disaster when tire problems turned the race into a series of 10-lap shootouts.

The hope is if tickets are reasonable, fans will still come and bring enough cash to spread a little around. Maybe, but it’s not quite business as usual in 2009.

Inside a souvenir store on the infield near pit road you can buy a $3 black marker or a $299 leather jacket. Russell Rabin and his 7-year-old son Jason decided on a pair of Dale Earnhardt Jr. hats at $25 a pop. When they got to the register, Jason grabbed one of the pens near the register and tried to hand it to the cashier.

“Sorry buddy, don’t think we’ll get one,” Rabin said, putting the pen back in the bin.

Financial support cut after gold medalist was pictured holding pot pipe

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Michael Phelps was suspended from competition for three months by USA Swimming, the latest fallout from a photo that showed the Olympic great inhaling from a marijuana pipe.

The sport’s national governing body also cut off its financial support to Phelps for the same three-month period, effective Thursday.

“This is not a situation where any anti-doping rule was violated, but we decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and a hero,” the Colorado Springs-based federation said in a statement.

“Michael has voluntarily accepted this reprimand and has committed to earn back our trust.”

Phelps won a record eight gold medals in Beijing and returned to America as one of the world’s most acclaimed athletes. Now he’s enduring a wave of bad news in the wake of the photo, published Sunday by News of the World, a British tabloid.

Earlier Thursday, cereal and snack maker Kellogg Co. announced it wouldn’t renew its sponsorship contract with Phelps, saying his behavior is “not consistent with the image of Kellogg.” The swimmer appeared on the company’s cereal boxes after his Olympic triumph.

“Michael’s been through a lot and he’s learned a lot, hopefully,” his coach, Bob Bowman, told The Associated Press during a telephone interview. “I support him and I want to see him do better. I’m here, as always, to try to help him move forward. He’s learned some tough lessons and he’s disappointed a lot of people, me included.”

Phelps has acknowledged “regrettable” behavior and “bad judgment.” He didn’t dispute the authenticity of the photo, reportedly taken at a house party while Phelps was visiting Columbia, S.C., in November during an extended break from training.

“I certainly understand USA Swimming needed to take action,” Bowman said. “We will certainly abide by everything they’ve put down.”

The 23-year-old has resumed training in his hometown of Baltimore, but his plans to return to competitive swimming will have to be put on hold. Phelps had planned to compete in early March at a Grand Prix meet in Austin, Texas.

Now, he won’t be able to compete until early May, which would give him a little more than two months for some racing before July’s world championships in Rome.

“This is the result of a poor decision Michael made,” U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said in an e-mail. “He understands there is accountability and has pledged to not repeat this in the future. We have offered our assistance to make certain he is as consistent and successful away from the pool as he is in it, and we are confident that will happen.”

After the suspension, Phelps would be able to compete at a May meet in Charlotte, N.C.; there’s another Grand Prix competition in Santa Clara, Calif., the following month. The U.S. team for Rome will be chosen at the national championships, which begin July 7 in Indianapolis.

“He’s been very good in practice,” Bowman said. “I think he feels good to be back in the water. Certainly, he’s not in very good shape.

“We’re anxious to get back to a really normal routine and we have. We’re moving on.”

Several of Phelps’ Olympic teammates rallied to his defense. Among them was Dara Torres, the 41-year-old silver medalist whom Phelps jokingly referred to in Beijing as “Mom.”

“I see him as a kid trying to grow up in the most intense spotlight known to any athlete. He has apologized and what else can he do?” she told the AP by telephone. “The thing I hope is that people realize Michael is still a person and not just a swimming hero.”

Torres said she sent Phelps a text a few days ago to extend her support.

“He didn’t let the USA down at the games, so we shouldn’t let him down,” she said.

Torres doesn’t expect a three-month suspension in a non-Olympic year to have much affect on Phelps’ career. He intends to keep swimming through the 2012 London Games.

“Knowing Michael the way I do, I guarantee you it’s going to make him want to do well,” Torres said. “All this is going to do is light a fire under him.”

Amanda Beard compared Phelps’ ordeal to some of the disdain she faced after posing nude in Playboy magazine before the Beijing Games.

“If anyone knows public scrutiny, it’s me,” the four-time Olympian said in a text message. “When I posed for Playboy, so many officials looked down on me. Michael knows he isn’t a bad person. He made a mistake. People need to get over it. I want to cheer him on in London.”

Even a rival agent came to Phelps’ defense.

“Enough is enough,” said Evan Morgenstein, who represents a large number of Olympic swimmers. “The penalty is far greater than the crime. He has said he is sorry. Let’s move on to the real problems in this country.”

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