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NASCAR Tickets
Homestead - Miami Speedway
Homestead, Florida
Today’s Homestead-Miami Speedway is
the third version of a track that first opening in 1995. Each change in
the track’s configuration has brought new challenges and new excitement
to the competition at the 1.5-track located about a half-hour south of
Miami.
Homestead-Miami Speedway began as an idea to help south Dade County and
the city of Homestead to recover after Hurricane Andrew devastated the
area in 1992. Ralph Sanchez, a longtime motorsports promoter in South
Florida, negotiated a deal to build the track to help with the area’s
revitalization.
When it opened in 1995, the track’s original configuration was a flat
oval with short “chute” straightaways between turns 1 and 2 and turns 3
and 4. In 2000, two years after Penske Motorsports and International
Speedway Corp. completed its purchase of the facility from Sanchez and
his partners, an $8 million renovation turned the track into a more
conventional oval with 6 degrees of banking in its turns.
Then, in 2003, Homestead-Miami Speedway took on its third – and current
– shape. The track’s turns were rebuilt using a high-tech process that
created “graduated” banking that varies from 18 degrees in the bottom
groove to 20 degrees near the outside wall.
That project cost another $12 million and set Homestead-Miami Speedway
up to play host to Ford Championship Weekend, a climactic triple-header
featuring the season finales in all three of NASCAR’s top national
series – Nextel Cup, Busch and Craftsman Trucks.
And the excitement just keeps on building.
In 2004, the Nextel Cup season-finale became the final race in the
10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup, NASCAR’s version of postseason play
that provided a fitting close to the tightest championship race in the
history of the series. Kurt Busch avoided disaster when a wheel came off
his Ford and held on to edge Jimmie Johnson by just eight points in the
battle for the Nextel Cup championship.
How could Homestead-Miami Speedway possibly top the thrilling
competition that marked the beginning of its second decade?
How about bringing the excitement of night racing to the South Florida
facility? Lights went up early in 2005, setting the stage for prime-time
endings for the season finales.
The seating capacity for Homestead-Miami Speedway has doubled over the
years, with room for up to 80,000 ticket holders to share in the
excitement these days.
In addition to racing in all three of NASCAR’s top series,
Homestead-Miami Speedway has hosted racing in the Championship Auto
Racing Teams and Indy Racing League series.
More than 5,000,000 people live in South Florida within a two-hour drive
of the picturesque Homestead-Miami Speedway. Just to its west are the
Florida Everglades, and Homestead-Miami Speedway sits right at the
entrance to the Overseas Highway, the ribbon of highways and bridges
tying the peninsula’s mainland to the Florida Keys.
Homestead-Miami Speedway is unique in many ways, from its graduated
banking to the pastel colors in its paint scheme that give it a
distinctive “South Beach” look. Homestead-Miami Speedway also has raised
grandstands that help provide superior sight lines for those holding
tickets. All in all, it’s a great place to watch great racing.
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