After 33 straight sellouts for Sprint Cup events, Richmond International Raceway fell short of packing the stands for today's Chevy Rock & Roll 400.

Halfway through the race, the bottom half of the track's backstretch grandstands were sparsely populated. There were a few gaps elsewhere around the track. There were hardly any open seats in the front stretch stands, and the preferred upper-level seats, including those in the pricey tower above Turn One, were packed.

Aimee Turner, RIR's director of publications, said that until this week the track had hoped it would have a 34th consecutive sellout, even though other NASCAR tracks have seen attendance lag as gas prices soared and the economy struggled. RIR seats 112,000.

"Until Monday," Turner said, "we were tracking ahead of our race in May. Then Hanna took over."

Turner declined to give an attendance figure for today's race.

Asked about extreme traffic backups for fans coming to today's race, Turner said the event had the usual number of law enforcement officers directing traffic. She said having the race start in the early afternoon rather than the evening -- the result of a one-day postponement because of Tropical Storm Hanna -- made a difference.

"When our race starts at 7:30 p.m.," she said, "fans start getting here at 7:30 a.m. That gives us 12 hours to get everybody parked and in the stands. Today we only had about five hours."

Asked about the outlook for getting traffic out of the RIR complex after today's Sprint Cup race -- at the same time fans are arriving for the 7 p.m. Nationwide Series race -- Turner said Henrico County has a plan in place to keep traffic moving both ways.

"They feel confident," she said.

-- Randy Hallman