Smith's Texas track tries to lap its take.

• Position: Bruton Smith's Texas Motor Speedway

Bruton Smith got only half of what he wanted - one big-ticket NASCAR race, not two, to kick off the inaugural season of his 150,000-seat Texas Motor Speedway.

It wasn't for lack of trying. The CEO of Concord-based Speedway Motorsports Inc. raised such a stink about getting a second Winston Cup event - the Interstate Batteries 500 is April 6 - that he risked ticking off NASCAR President Bill France. In January, a month after the schedule was set, Smith said he still expected a second event because France had "promised" it to him, something France denies.

At the Daytona 500 in mid-February, Smith made his pitch again - a Nov. 9 date at the new track, 15 miles north of Fort Worth, and a $4 million purse ($500,000 more than the Interstate 500). A week later, Eddie Gossage, the track's vice president and general manager, lobbied NASCAR Vice President for Competition Mike Helton, who was inspecting the track. "I kept waiting for him to say, 'Tone your man down,'" Gossage told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "I've heard that from them for a year and a half."

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