- International Speedway Corporation held several successful race weekends and hosted capacity crowds for the May Sprint Cup Race at Richmond.
- Nearly one million paid attendees were hosted at events demonstrating that consumers continue to value motorsports, particularly NASCAR despite the current economic environment.
- National NASCAR Series television broadcasts are up over last year which is another example of continued fan interest.
Significantly contributing to growth in earnings per share was a lower share count as a result of the aggressive return of capital program through share repurchases.
- Daytona hosted Bike Week in early March highlighted by the AMA Supercross and the 67th running of the Daytona 200, both presented by Honda. Inclement weather impacted walk-up sales for both events.
- Homestead-Miami Speedway ran the 2008 IRL season opener GAINSCO Auto Insurance Indy 300; the first race of the IndyCar Series and Champ Car reunification.
- In addition the track held the Grand-Am Rolex Series, Grand Prix of Miami Sports Car event.
Martinsville Speedway hosted a weekend of NASCAR Craftsman Truck and Sprint Cup racing, highlighted by the Goody''s Cool Orange 500.
- Unseasonably cold weather for the Cup event impacted attendance-related revenues.
Phoenix International Raceway hosted a NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide weekend.
- Talladega Superspeedway held a Sprint Cup and Nationwide race weekend. Also of note was an increase in television viewership for the Cup race of 8% over 2007.
- Kansas Speedway ran a successful ARCA RE/MAX, Craftsman Truck and IndyCar weekend.
- Darlington Raceway hosted a great weekend of Sprint Cup and Nationwide racing, highlighted by the fourth consecutive sellout of the Dodge Challenger 500.
Daytona hosted Cup, Nationwide and Grand-Am racing, highlighted by a terrific Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola.
- Watkins Glen hosted a weekend of IndyCar racing, highlighted by increased attendance for the Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen and Ryan Hunter-Reay''s first IndyCar series victory.
- For the remainder of the quarter, the firm will host weekends anchored by Sprint Cup races at Chicagoland Speedway, Watkins Glen, Michigan and Auto Club Speedway.
- Through the limited partnership with GMI, the second annual NASCAR Nationwide and Grand-Am racing weekend will be held in Montreal, Canada.
Fiscal 2008 Outlook
- Spending at existing facilities is expected to approximate $100 million.
- Excluded from the CapEx guidance for 2008 is between $5 million and $10 million in estimated spending for Daytona Live, the mixed-use entertainment destination development being pursued in a 50/50 joint venture with The Cordish Company.
- Construction is now underway on the office building that will serve as ISC''s, NASCAR''s and Grand Am''s new corporate headquarters.
Final design plans for retail, dining and an entertainment portion of the development are expected to be completed by the end of August.
- The Kansas Lottery Commission has evaluated the proposals for the development of a Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on the property adjacent to Kansas Speedway and forwarded them to the Lottery Gaming Facility Review Board, which has final approval in selecting the company to construct and manage the casino.
- The Review Board will be holding public meetings for the final decision anticipated this September.
Year-over-year growth in both sponsorship and hospitality revenue is expected.
- Full-year non-GAAP EBITDA margin is forecasted to range between 40% and 41%.
- The operating margin to range between 31% and 32% of total revenues.
- Full-year earnings guidance should range from $3.05 to $3.10 per diluted share.
Key question and answers from the second quarter fiscal 2008 as conducted by International Speedway Corp. on July 9, 2008
Paul Swinand (Stephens, Inc): Is there anything else that you are planning down in the guidance?
Wes Harris: What we talked about on the attendance-related revenues being down, low to mid single-digits for the full year, that is going to include admissions as well as its going to include your food, beverage and merchandise.
And when you look at motorsports-related income, TV will continue to grow through the third and fourth quarter and that is contracted so that is north of 2% for the year. We still anticipate for the full year that we are going to be up on sponsorship and hospitality.
We will be down on the remaining portion, the last 15% of that line item, that is a combination of advertising and camping and track rentals and things like that. Those types of things have been impacted in the business.
Paul Swinand (Stephens, Inc): Are you planning to make a loss to breakeven, since you have made some gains on Motorsports Authentics?
Dan Houser: That is the way we anticipate that business cycling. What happens is while you are continuing on with events, a lot of the buying in some of your other channels is heavily weighted to the first two quarters of the year and then they will begin the cycle of buying for the following year. We hope to see great performance out of that entity but that is pretty much in line with what we had anticipated.
Paul Swinand (Stephens, Inc): Did admissions track worse as time progressed through the quarter, is there any color on the gas price sensitivity?
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