What happened to the backstretch grandstands at Daytona?

This is probably a rhetorical question, but I was surprised to see they'd removed the backstretch grandstands. When I was there in 2008, that thing was full of folks. It also looks like they removed sections of the front stretch grandstands, down by the old DePalma section?

Not great news for a once dominate sport. Seems RG got out at the right time. Although privately I was hoping RG would pick up a ride on Sunday.

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Permalink Reply by speedy7 on February 22, 2016 at 7:41pm

Fun zone now, I think...

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Permalink Reply by WJM on February 22, 2016 at 8:33pm

Layman Speak: "Wow, that's a lot of empty seats"

Corporate speak: "Excess Stationary Human Support System Inventory"

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Permalink Reply by Robert Silber on February 23, 2016 at 8:08am

WJM---That's a good note. I work for a major company that sponsors the most popular driver. We are going through downsizing right now and an email went out yesterday---they referred to the correct number of field employees as "labor allocation footprint"---gotta love corporate speak.

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Permalink Reply by Martin Calderwood on February 23, 2016 at 11:59am

But I just watched Obama tell everyone just yesterday that other countries are in awe seeing such a turnaround in the USA economy! Things are going great aren't they??? Hmmm, they must be including food stamps, drugs and corruption in that turnaround.

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Permalink Reply by Bricoop on February 23, 2016 at 2:48pm

Keep politics out of these forums.

Thank you

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Permalink Reply by alan4s on February 23, 2016 at 8:57pm

+a gazillion

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Permalink Reply by Michael Martinez on February 23, 2016 at 2:13pm

We are in a turn around........we keep turning around and around and around.just like what happens to dinner the next morning.....CORPORATE : We are currently in a reorganization phase based on the betterment of the senior members in our organization to which the general underlying foundation will be further distanced from and addressed from here forward in total falsehood as the majority.

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Permalink Reply by Bigzoom on February 23, 2016 at 4:19pm

The biggest factor to attendance trending downward is TV is getting better. This is happening in every major sports. You have 70"+ Hi-Def 4K televisions that gives in-depth coverage and behind the scenes footage. This is why TV package deals are getting bigger and bigger and why half the time you see commercials. Daytona has gone above the standard to improve it's facilities to keep good attendance numbers. I expect other tracks to step up to attempt to keep fans engaged

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Permalink Reply by RG7FAN on February 24, 2016 at 12:38am

What he said

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Permalink Reply by ChevyTT77 on February 23, 2016 at 9:57pm

With the new Daytona Rising....you will notice they did increase the grandstands in the front stretch. I don't know the final attendance numbers, but the stands did look pretty full on tv.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Kenyon on February 23, 2016 at 11:41pm

and you won't know the attendance numbers (2013 was the last year is was reported by ISC) you also won't know purse pay out (new for 2016) but know that the number of seats at Daytona 2016 is 101500, down from 147k.
Sorry transparency is not the new Na$crap policy.