Attendance figures indicate that NASCAR racing is more popular than Kansas University football.

After all, last weekend’s races at the Kansas Speedway were sellouts with 78,000 people attending. The Jayhawks, on the other hand, have struggled to draw a crowd of more than 40,000 people in either of their first two home football games.

But when it comes to boosting the Lawrence economy, NASCAR still finishes second to Jayhawk football, according to Judy Billings, director of the city’s convention and visitors bureau.

Billings said her office hadn’t conducted a formal study to determine the economic effect the speedway and its thousands of fans had on the Lawrence area, but she was pretty sure it didn’t match the dollars generated by a typical KU football game.

The convention and visitors bureau for years has dubbed home football games as “million-dollar weekends” for the Lawrence economy.

“The economic impact from the speedway is very, very good for us, but I don’t think I can go as far as saying it is a million-dollar weekend for us,” Billings said. “It fills up our hotel rooms like a football weekend, but it doesn’t generate as much internal spending.”

One of the biggest differences is the ticket money generated by each event. Kansas football weekends are estimated to generate at least $1 million in local spending largely because the ticket prices are included in the total.

Billings said the convention and visitors bureau included those numbers because the ticket money goes into KU coffers and eventually back into the local economy through salaries and other spending.

But with the speedway that’s not necessarily the case.

“The money spent on that event goes into Kansas City, Kan., which is great for them, but it’s a different deal for us,” Billings said.

Another big difference is the amount of time fans spend in Lawrence. Billings said it common for NASCAR fans to leave early in the morning for the races and return late in the evening.

“People are just not here for the day during those races,” Billings said. “They’re away from Lawrence and that’s different than a football game. Whether we like it or not, people leave the football games early and go shopping.

“Plus, the races don’t have the potential to generate the student spending, like football does. If we win a big game, that generates a lot of student spending at bars and such.”

Billings said Lawrence still appreciated having the speedway nearby.

“We love having the speedway so close,” Billings said. “It is just that having six or seven home football games a year is very, very good for us.”

No vacancy

For the Lawrence lodging industry, the speedway does make an impact. But it is not in the number of people who stay in the city’s hotels; instead, it is in the amount of money they pay to stay here.

Billings said a survey by her office showed 1,200 hotel rooms in the city were filled last Friday and Saturday.

But Stephanie Bowler, general manager of the SpringHill Suites by Marriott, said it was not all that unusual for Lawrence hotel rooms to be sold out during a weekend. Bowler estimated that Lawrence hotel rooms were sold out about 35 to 40 weekends a year.

“During this time of the year we are usually sold out anyway,” Bowler said. “We probably would have been sold out without the race.”

But Bowler said the extra demand the races created for rooms did allow Lawrence hotels to increase their normal room rates. Bowler estimated most Lawrence hotels were able to increase the rates by about 20 percent last weekend.

Based on an informal telephone survey by the Journal-World, room prices in Lawrence this weekend averaged about $85 for a double room and $59 for a single room. That means a 20 percent increase would amount to a $17 increase in the rate for a double room and a nearly $12 increase in the rate for a single room.

Multiply those increases by the 1,200 rooms available in Lawrence and the totals range from $14,400 to $20,400 in extra revenue area hotels are able to generate as a result of the speedway.

What hasn’t gone up in the lodging industry, however, are occupancy rates. Bowler said occupancy numbers for September hadn’t yet been compiled. But, according to a survey SpringHill Suites subscribes to, the city’s occupancy rates are running below 2001 numbers.

For example, during August, the occupancy rate was 61 percent in 2002, meaning 61 percent of the hotel rooms were occupied by guests during the month. That’s compared to 67 percent in August 2001. Through August, the city’s occupancy rate is 60 percent compared to 62 percent through the same period in 2001.

Bowler said it was evident the speedway hadn’t been a cure for the downturn the industry has experienced since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“But one weekend never makes or breaks a hotel,” she said.

Planes a plenty

One weekend a year also doesn’t make or break the city’s airport, but Lloyd Hetrick, operator of the Lawrence Municipal Airport, said the races had been a nice boost for his business, Hetrick Aircraft Inc.

Hetrick said the airport, in North Lawrence near Interstate 70, played host to 22 large aircraft that were associated with either race teams or race officials. That’s up from about 16 large planes that landed at the airport during last year’s race, the first for the speedway.

Hetrick, a private businessman who contracts to provide aviation services for the city-owned airport, estimated that the planes brought more than 200 people through the airport doors. He also estimated that the travelers rented 50 cars supplied by the local offices of both Hertz Car & Truck Rental Sales and Enterprise Rent A Car.

Fuel sales also provide a benefit to his business.

“Big planes are great for us because they use a lot more fuel,” Hetrick said.

Hetrick said the airport sold about 6,000 gallons of fuel last weekend. He estimates without the race traffic, the airport would have sold about 2,000 gallons.

With fuel prices at $2.57 a gallon, the extra fuel sales result in about an extra $10,000 worth of revenue for the airport, although Hetrick said he did provide the pilots up to a 25 cent per gallon discount in hopes of luring them back next year. Hetrick said the city received about 5 cents per gallon of all the airport’s fuel sales.

“It’s not making me a lot of money,” Hetrick said. “But it should be a solid business for years to come. If we treat them right, hopefully we’ll be able to count on selling an extra 4,000 gallons of fuel every September.”

Hetrick said in addition to the fuel discounts, he had taken other steps to help convince NASCAR pilots to not only to return to the airport, but to spread the word about the facility.

Hetrick rented a big-screen television for the pilots lounge during the weekend and served a meal to the them while they were watching the race at the airport. All the pilots stay at the airport during the race because they don’t know when they’ll have to take off, depending on whether their team is knocked out of the race early.

Hetrick said the airport also bought K-Tags for all the rental cars at the airport to help ensure that the trip along I-70 between the airport and the speedway was as hassle-free as possible.

“It creates some extra expenses for us, but we try to spoil them as much as we can so they’ll keep coming back,” Hetrick said.