A new traffic plan and millions of dollars in improvements later, Kentucky Speedway officials are confident the only bumper-to-bumper traffic racing fans will be talking about Saturday will happen on the track this time — not off it as in 2011.

Officials at the Sparta, Ky., track say they are prepared to avoid a repeat of last year’s inaugural NASCAR Sprint Cup race that saw traffic backed up at least 10 miles. Thousands of fans missed much of the race, thousands more were turned away for lack of parking and countless others gave up and headed home.

“When something like that happens — we really were very disappointed with the way it all transpired — there’s a time to apologize and a time to get to work,” said Mark Simendinger, the general manager of Kentucky Speedway.

“You can apologize until you’re blue in the face but if you don’t fix the problem nobody really cares. Let’s face it, our fans want one thing: They want to come to a great track to watch the best drivers in the Cup Series race. They don’t want to hear I’m sorry anymore. All they want to know is why will it be any better? We’ve laid that story out many, many times now. And as we’ve announced the progress, we’ve tried to be extremely transparent. You can’t ask fans for their time and their hard-earned money and not explain to them how it’s going to be better.”

The improvements for Saturday’s Quaker State 400 include the expansion of Highway 35 to seven lanes, widening the I-71 ramp to Highway 35 to three lanes, a pedestrian tunnel connecting the new 170-acre Ford parking lot to the track, converting 50 new acres of parking and adding gravel aisles to 100 acres of previously all-grass parking.

In all 20,000 new parking spaces were created compared to 2011.

Simendinger said the speedway is ready for the fans. But the question to be answered is are the fans ready to give the speedway another chance? The Dayton area consistently ranks among NASCAR’s top five TV markets. Some fans might choose to sit this one out and watch from home to see how the new traffic plan works before deciding to attend in 2013 if all goes well.

“I think that’s a possibility, but it’s up to us to create the value to make someone want to make the trip down and spend the money and take the time,” Simendinger said. “We want to make it so that if you are a motorsports fan who has been watching it on TV ... you get that feeling like, ‘Man, I wish I was there.’ We have to develop that.”

A concert by LoCash Cowboys on the concourse and an infield show by Chris Young highlight Saturday’s pre-race events. A zipline and tire changing challenge will also be offered. Balloon artists, face painters, fire jugglers and magicians will also appear during the three-day NASCAR visit that includes the Truck Series on Thursday and the Nationwide Series on Friday.

Track officials said they are expecting about 100,000 tickets to be sold for the 107,000-seat, 1.5-mile tri-oval and they anticipate spectators to arrive sooner this year, so gates are opening two hours earlier at 7 a.m.

“I think people are going to leave earlier and I think it’s going to take them a lot less time (to park) than they are going to budget,” Simendinger said. “That’s great. They’re going to be at our facility. I want them to come to our facility early. We have our (corporate and souvenir) display area oversubscribed and that makes for a great day for race fans.

“We listened, we learned an awful lot last year. We had a very, very successful inaugural race in many respects. But we had a very disappointing one in other operational respects, especially related to traffic and parking. If you’re going to take some lumps you better learn from them. We know we’ve learned a lot and we’re excited to show people how far we’ve come.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2400, ext. 6991, or gbilling@DaytonDailyNews.com.