New 'War' in Texas: F-1 Tries On NASCAR

You don't mess with Texas, folks.

That includes Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone, who scheduled the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in Austin on the same day as the annual fall NASCAR weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

Ecclestone, some of you might remember, should know better. When scheduling the U.S. Grand Prix in Phoenix back in the early 1990s, the British grandstander was outraged that tickets for the race at Phoenix International Raceway sold out in minutes, while his F-1 race struggled to sell much at all.

The race was originally scheduled for Nov. 9, but F-1 dropped three events and moved the race at COTA back to Nov. 2.

Distance could play a role as well as the kind of fans that attend each type of race. Austin is 220 miles from Fort Worth, but in Texas, that's around the corner.

The announced attendance for the Formula 1 race at COTA last November was 113,162, according to Sporting News.TMS does not announce attendance figures but it is reducing its grandstand capacity to 112,552 for 2014 with infield admission also available.

“It’s a foolish move by Formula 1,” TMS President Eddie Gossage said in a statement Wednesday. “Our two NASCAR Sprint Cup races draw the two largest crowds in Texas sports. It isn’t the smartest move to try to compete with that.

“I’m sure regardless of what they say publicly, the folks at the Austin track are pulling their hair out over this one. They don’t have any say over their date.“

In 2014, the NASCAR race will be televised on ESPN while the Formula 1 race will be on NBC. Starting in 2015, NBC will have rights to both events, which at least would likely mean different starting times if they ran on the same day.