With San Antonio Raceway being my home track (I live about 15 miles away from it). The repair at the track last year cost the track owner a ton of money. Why don't you try to find a contractor on a friday night at 11:00pm to gather up a crew on a moments notice, and have them finish the job of removing and repaving an 11' x 600+' patch of asphalt at around 8:00am saturday morning! Also the asphalt used was not the proper mix to be used on a racetrack (had to use whatever asphalt plant that was running with the mixture they were producing, and no they can't instantly change the "mixture") it also take a certain amount of time (depending on the mixture) for the asphalt mixture to cure enough to be used. The thing is SAR wasn't really designed to run cars that goes over 200mph (it was built mainly for bracket racing, the track owner is a bracket racer), so the shutdown is really too short for anything faster that has a parachute or brake problem. Lastly it looks like the IHRA is going to add 2 more 1/8th mile national events in 2009, so this might be a try it and see how it works out type of deal. San Antonio is also the home of LiveNation which is the main reason why they want a national event in their backyard.
On another note I'm looking forward to meet fellow mater's (I can also answer any other questions you may have when we get to meet up), and seeing some old friends there this year.