TALLADEGA CHAIRMAN EXPLAINS BURN BAN FOR RACE WEEKEND

Open campfires, long a staple of fans attending NASCAR races at Talladega Superspeedway, will not be allowed on track property during next weekend's race events at the track featuring the Sprint CupSeries and the Camping World TruckSeries.The ban is in conjunction with a Drought Emergency Declaration signed by Alabama Governor Robert Bentley that covers 46 counties, including Talladega County.
"We're not going to allow any open fires," Grant Lynch, Chairman of the 2.66-mile track, told NASCAR.com Thursday.
Campfires, fire pits, fireworks, flying lanterns and other similar outdoor activities or items will not be permitted. The use of grills for cooking will still be allowed "but you can't use it as a heat source (to stay warm)," he said.
"We are probably just a couple of days ahead of the state putting the same (restrictions) on maybe all the counties that are currently under the burn ban. It's just really a tough situation in the fact that our parking lots, our campgrounds, everywhere is just bone dry and crunches under your feet.
"I've been here 23 years and we've never had to do this. There are fires everywhere in Alabama right now. And it's depleting the resources. We are doing the thing that is safest for our fans and to protect the folks that are going to be here having to put out any potential issues we have anyway."
While the Carolinas coastal region continues to recover from Hurricane Matthew's heavy rain and high winds, Lynch said last week's wet weather never made it far enough inland to impact his facility.
"Not a drop. It never got this far," he said. "We would have taken all we could have gotten. There is no green grass on the property; it's all brown."
Approximately 1,200 acres of track property is used for parking and campgrounds. The infield alone accounts for nearly 250 acres.
"People say, 'Well, you should water everything,'" Lynch said. "You can't water 1,200 acres."
If there's a bright side to the situation, it's the weather outlook for next weekend's doubleheader. Currently, the extended forecast calls for unseasonably warm temperatures.
"It's not like we're telling fans you can't have a campfire and it's going to be 30 degrees at night," Lynch said. "A nice jacket and you should be fine all weekend.
"If everyone cooperates, it will keep everyone safe here and we don't have unnecessary, runaway fires. We've already had a fire by the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. We put it out and about three hours later it came back. We put it out again. This stuff can go down into the ground and come up somewhere else.
"We're not doing this without a lot of thought and a lot of concern for taking care of everybody that's going to come to our property in the best way we can and we have to enforce this. It's our duty to do that for our fans."