Many Lawrence officials say they are reasonably pleased with the impact the Kansas Speedway produced for the community during its first year but expect to receive an even greater boon once race fans discover Lawrence is an easy pit stop.

Lawrence hotels were booked solid, restaurants were generally busy, and retailers reported brisk business during the speedway’s two biggest events this summer.

Bill Davis, left, personal pilot for Ward Burton, supplies directions to Burton on the runway of the Lawrence Municipal Airport in September. Burton is a NASCAR driver for Bill Davis-Caterpillar. Drivers and their crew members trickled into the airport last summer in preparation for the NASCAR racing at the Kansas Speedway.

But when it comes to the race for attracting the dollars of thousands of fans flocking to the western Wyandotte County facility, the checkered flag is far from dropping, many Lawrence businesses say.

“We believe the local impacts will keep growing,” Stephanie Bowler, general manager of downtown’s SpringHill Suites by Marriott, said. “The exciting thing is that it is so easy to visit Lawrence from there.

“It is basically traffic-free. I think we’re a real diamond in the rough. I think we can grow into one of the top places for race fans to stay just because of our location.

“But right now, they don’t know the name of Lawrence, and we’re having to educate them about how convenient Lawrence can be.”

Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Judy Billings said her organization isn’t able to come up with a dollar estimate for the impact speedway events had on the community, but she thinks most businesses are reasonably pleased with first-year results.

But like Bowler, Billings believes it is important for Lawrence to spread the word about itself.

“We are participating in every type of program that our budget will possibly allow us to participate in,” Billings said, adding that the department increased its speedway advertising from two publications to three this year.

The impact should stretch beyond just the lodging industry as well. Linda Lester, owner of The Etc. Shop, said she’s been surprised that her downtown boutique already has benefited from the track’s presence.

“It seemed to make for a lot more traffic in town on those weekends,” Lester said. “I think a lot of it is that many of the wives get tired of being at the races. We also had a lot of the parents of racers come in.

“I honestly was surprised to see that many people come over here to shop because I didn’t think there would be any time at an event like that, but it sounds like a lot of the women have quite a bit of time to do some shopping.”

Lester said the impact continues even today because several of the out-of-town shoppers took business cards and have made mail orders throughout the year.

Jeremy Douglas, executive director of Downtown Lawrence Inc., said other retailers reported strong sales as well.

“I think it lived up to the expectations and probably will only get bigger every year,” Douglas said. “But I already know a couple of retail stores that made about as much in that weekend as they would in a half a month.”

Douglas also believes the speedway can have great indirect benefits for the downtown area.

“I definitely think the type of clientele that go to an event like that largely would be a new type of crowd for us,” Douglas said. “I think they may not know downtown Lawrence even exists, and any time we get to introduce the downtown to someone new, it is a positive.”

Billings said she thinks the speedway will create many opportunities to spread the word about Lawrence on a national scale. During the September speedway race, she said, Lawrence played host to nine professional travel writers who came to Lawrence simply because of the speedway.

Billings and her staff expect to see stories mentioning Lawrence in several regional and even national travel publications in the coming months because of the speedway.

“I think this will build and build and build and give us the opportunity to get much better exposure in the future,” Billings said. “We kind of saw this when the factory outlet malls first opened up here years ago. It was a hook to get people here.

“That is what this speedway is. It intrigues people and gets them here, and then once they are here, they do lots of other things.”

The speedway this year again will have its two biggest events on the same weekends as last year. The NASCAR Craftsmen Truck Series and the Indy Racing League will be at the track from July 6-7, and the NASCAR Busch Series and Winston Cup Series will be in the area Sept. 28-29.