Word: cupping
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...high fuel prices deterring trips to the track last summer, NASCAR attendance dropped nearly 10% in 2008. This season, with the recession, ticket sales have lagged. In early February 2008, Daytona seats were sold out. This season, plenty of seats were still available. International Speedway, which owns 12 Sprint Cup tracks, including the Daytona International Speedway, recently announced that advance sales for all its tracks were down 17%. Eddie Gossage, president of the Texas Motor Speedway, a Speedway Motorsports track that hosts two Sprint Cup races, laments that funding for corporate hospitality tents has dropped. "All of the executives...
NASCAR has already aggressively trimmed expenses. Like many companies, teams have turned to layoffs: 600 to 800 workers from Sprint Cup teams have been let go since the end of last season. "It has served to cull the flock," says Steve Kalik, a team manager for Specialty Racing in NASCAR's second-tier Nationwide series. NASCAR also banned testing prior to Daytona and during the season, essentially R&D time for the cars at its sanctioned tracks for the 2009 season. France estimates the ban will save teams $30 million. (See pictures of custom big rigs...
...traffic. At Daytona, the cost of backstretch seats was reduced from $95 to $55, the lowest price since 1995. Race organizers negotiated with local hotels to eliminate minimum-five-day stays. Organizers in Charlotte, N.C., have also persuaded the city's hotels to reduce rates for the two Sprint Cup races at Lowe's Motor Speedway (LMS). According to LMS president Marcus Smith, the track not only dropped prices in some sections but also refunded the difference to fans who had already purchased, an effort, he says, to show loyalty to the customers who have helped build the sport...
...race days. NASCAR may need to get even cozier with them. As NASCAR raced to the top of the American sporting scene, it might have taken its base a bit for granted. "We need to engage the fans with more passion," says driver Jeff Burton, a 17-year Sprint Cup veteran. "We need to be creative, to come up with better ideas." One thought officials are kicking around right now: sending drivers to local markets weeks, even months, before race day to make appearances and create buzz. "Just because we did it a certain way for five years doesn...
...unspecified, nameless East European conflict who washes up in Liberty City looking for a new life. (Liberty City is, like Gotham, a darker version of New York City, with satirical flourishes. The Statue of Liberty has been replaced by the Statue of Happiness, which holds aloft a coffee cup instead of a torch.) Over the course of the game, Niko slugs, shoots and carjacks his way up (or maybe down) the ladder of the criminal underworld. As he does so, he gradually realizes that his new life is no less senseless and violent than his old one - turns...