I forget the exact number now but I did look it up and the Coliseum capacity is now around 78,000.
They tarped off the first several rows around the track and there were sections tarped off elsewhere around the stadium for various reasons. So let's say the tarped off sections meant 65,000 seats were available. Just my guess.
I know they handed out piles of tickets to military types in the area because I heard someone say that on Sirius last week leading up to the race. I'm sure other groups were handed comp tickets too. If that race was half full I'll eat my hat but let's say it was half full plus a little extra so that's 35,000 people there. Say 10,000 people got in on comped tickets. That's 25,000 paid. So NASCAR made everyone travel 6000 miles round trip to race in front of less people than watched the Clash at Daytona. They're smarter than me so what else can I say?
