Capacity: • 66,089 Grandstand Seats
• 50 Luxury Suites
• 210 seat Private Kentucky Club
• 2,000 seat Bluegrass Club
• 100 Private RV spaces on backstretch
• 200 Reserved Camping Spaces
• 1000 General Camping Spaces
Garage Area: • 104 Separate Garage Stalls (52 garages on each side)
• 4 Competitor Lounges
• Outback Steakhouse Restaurant
• 2 Tire Centers
• Pedestrian Tunnel 635 foot long
• Escalator - infield - 22 ft tall
• Escalator - grandstand - 90 ft tall
• Infield media center seats 130
• Press Conference Room seats 350
• Infield Care Center
Track: 1.5 mile Tri-oval
Kentucky Speedway sits on 1,000 acres of land 97 acres
inside the tri-oval
Kentucky Speedway is a 1.5 mile motor speedway located in north-central
Kentucky, near the community of Sparta, Kentucky; approximately halfway
between Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio, and is additionally
70 miles from another fairly sizable market, Lexington, Kentucky. The
track was designed to host a NASCAR Nextel Cup races and has hosted
NASCAR Busch Series and Craftsman Truck series races, as well as IRL
races. However, NASCAR officals have refused any discussion of a Nextel
Cup race being moved there.
In July 2005, Kentucky Speedway filed a lawsuit against NASCAR and
International Speedway Corporation, (ISC) claiming that they violated
federal antitrust laws by not allowing tracks to bid for NASCAR races,
be it they meet the necessary requirements. This lawsuit was filed a
year after Francis Ferko, a Speedway Motorsports shareholder,
successfully sued NASCAR and ISC, forcing NASCAR to eliminate the
prestigious Southern 500 in Darlington, SC, in favour of a second race
at Texas Motor Speedway, as demanded by the terms of the lawsuit. Track
officials used the Ferko case as precedent for the lawsuit.
NASCAR asked that the suit be dismissed or moved to Florida, home of
NASCAR headquarters, but instead the Federal Court decided the case
should procede in Kentucky courts. Hearings on the issue are expected in
2006.
There has also been talk that Kentucky Speedway owners might purchase
Pocono Raceway and move one of its Nextel Cup races to Kentucky.
However, the Mattioli family, which owns Pocono Raceway, also own the
South Boston Speedway, and manage the Music City Motorplex, has so far
shown no interest in selling that superspeedway.
It is coincidental that both of Kentucky's major 300-mile races (NBS,
IRLICS) are sponsored by Meijer.
