By Patrick Crowley
Enquirer staff writer

SPARTA - Bobby Hamilton drives for a living but he flies to work.

The veteran racecar driver from Tennessee travels to speedways around the nation on his own plane, except when he races at the Kentucky Speedway in Gallatin County.

Unlike most major motor speedways in America, the Kentucky Speedway does not have quick access to a private airport.

But that could change, soon.

Speedway owners and local officials are pushing the federal government to build a 15 million airport within about a mile of the speedway's main gate.

"Most of the tracks have an airport, or at least one real close by," Hamilton said.

"That would make a huge difference here in Kentucky if they would get an airport ... because more and more drivers, (car) owners, fans and sponsors get to races in their own planes," said Hamilton, here last week to promote Saturday'sNASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Built Ford Tough 225.

Along with giving local pilots access to a private landing strip, an airport would help the speedway attract a Nextel Cup race, the most popular and lucrative of NASCAR's professional racing circuits.

NASCAR officials have told speedway owners that having an airport nearby would boost the chances of winning a coveted spot on the Nextel circuit.

"That would be a big incentive for what they are wanting around here, a Cup race," Hamilton said.

Last week, Speedway president Mark Simendinger and representatives from HMB Professional Engineers in Frankfort - the speedway's airport consultants - met in Boone County with officials from the Federal Aviation Administration.

At that meeting, which also included representatives of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Simendinger made the speedway's first formal pitch for funding and support.

"There were no commitments," said Simendinger, who also serves as chairman of the Tri-County Regional Airport board, formed by the judge-executives in Gallatin, Owen and Carroll counties.

"But we also don't anticipate any major roadblocks," he said.

The process will include an environmental study and the opportunity for public comment. Simendinger says the airport could open in 2006.

The airport board used a $350,000 federal grant secured by Kentucky's U.S. Senators - Republicans Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning -- to hire HMB for the feasibility study.

The study calls for a 6,000-foot private airstrip, large enough to handle corporate jets and other small aircraft. That would make it much smaller than Cincinnati's Lunken Airport.

Lunken has a runway of about the same size, but houses nearly 300 planes, including several private jets owned by Cincinnati-area corporations.

By contrast, the Gallatin County airport would be used mainly by about 70 private plane owners living in the region, the study found.

"It's going to be a commuter airport for small planes," Simendinger said. "There is a large demand for private air transportation. There won't be any (commercial) flights in and out of here."

On race weekends, flights could swell to as many as 400 a day.

Each February, Daytona Beach International Airport handles about 500 flights, nearly all of them jets, for the Daytona 500 Nextel Cup.

HMB has selected three potential sites. All are close to the speedway, which prefers a flat tract of mostly farmland just south of Interstate 71 along Park Ridge Road.

Simendinger stresses the process is the "very, very preliminary."

"We have just identified sites, and not even talked to landowners yet," he said. "But we're trying to move as quickly as possible."

The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is about 30 miles northeast of the speedway. Officials there support the regional airport because it would eliminate much of major airport's smaller aircraft traffic.

"That makes us more efficient," said airport spokesman Ted Bushelman. "The fewer (smaller) planes we have, the more commercial flights we can handle."

Gov. Ernie Fletcher also has expressed support for the airport. While the federal government would pay for about 95 percent of the airport's cost, the state would likely be responsible for the remaining 5 percent, Simendinger said.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com