Texas Purse Tops $5 Million

FORT WORTH-DALLAS (March 9, 1999) – Drivers in the PRIMESTAR 500 NASCAR Winston Cup and Coca-Cola 300 NASCAR Busch Series races will be competing for a share of two of the largest purses of the 1999 season.

The purse for the March 28 PRIMESTAR 500 will be $4,057,094 – the third-largest of the season. The March 27 Coca-Cola 300 offers $996,603 in posted awards, making it easily one of the top ten of the 1999 Busch Series Grand National Division.

"Everything really is bigger in Texas," said speedway general manager Eddie Gossage. "It’s going to be a nice paycheck for the winners of each race and right on down the line."

A first-place finish for the PRIMESTAR 500 will pay $359,190. The winner of Saturday’s Coca-Cola 300 will take home $58,925.

"PRIMESTAR sponsored Atlanta last year, didn’t they," said Bobby Labonte. "I seem to recall taking most of their money that day," he laughed, referring to his March 1998 win of the PRIMESTAR 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Labonte, who was testing the MBNA Pontiac Busch car at the speedway Monday and Tuesday, is one of 20 NASCAR Winston Cup drivers who are scheduled to run the Coca-Cola 300 Busch Series race at Texas.

"I hope to take my share of both purses this year, " said Labonte. "The changes to the speedway seem to have worked and I think we’ll see some good racing this year."

· SPEEDWAY ADDS MORE TEMPORARY SEATS -- The speedway has already added 4,800 permanent seats as part of The Speedway Club in Turn One and 10,000 temporary seats in turns three and four for this year’s PRIMESTAR 500. Even with the additional seating, the race is approaching a sell-out quicker than last year. As a result, the speedway announced it was adding 2,199 more temporary seats to be located overlooking Turn Two. Construction is slated to begin this week.

"If we could get our hands on even more temporary seating, we’d find a place for it," said Gossage. "We’re already selling the seats we’ve announced today – there is just such a demand for tickets. I fully expect we’ll have close to 220,000 in attendance for the PRIMESTAR 500."

The speedway has a seating capacity of 167,060 for the PRIMESTAR 500 --154,861 of the seats are permanent.