Just a few miles north of "The
Strip," Las Vegas Motor Speedway sits like a diamond in the desert. One
of the most complete racing complexes in the world, its 1,600 acres
include road courses, a three-eighths mile oval, a dirt track and a
state-of-the-art drag racing facility.
At its heart, however, is the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway, home
for the UAW-Daimler Chrysler 400 on the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.
Construction of the $200 million
complex began in 1995.
Nearly 2,000 tons of concrete were originally used to build more than
100,000 seats. Shortly after Speedway Motorsports Inc. bought the track
in 1998, it announced plans to add 22,000 seats in the Dale Earnhardt
Tower overlooking the frontstretch.
Construction of the Richard Petty Terrace in Turn 1 was completed in
2006, allowing fans a shot at 14,000 additional tickets and pushing the
trackıs seating capacity to nearly 150,000.
The first NASCAR race held at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was a Busch
Series event in 1996. Two years later, the Cup series made its first
visit with Mark Martin picking up the victory.
Jeff Burton and Matt Kenseth have both won two Cup races there. Jeff
Gordon, Sterling Marlin and Jimmie Johnson also have visited Victory
Lane at the 1.5-mile track.
Las Vegas
Motor Speedway, located at 7000 Las Vegas Boulevard North in Las Vegas,
Nevada, is a 1,200 acre (4.9 km²) complex of 4 different tracks for
automobile racing. The complex is owned by Speedway Motorsports, Inc.,
which is located in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The complex is home to several race teams. Currently, March, 2005, the
track is open two nights a week for locals to drag race. This is an
effort to get this activity off of local streets and into a safer
environment.
The track is used by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as
their driver training facility.
In 2006, plans were announced to reconfigure the track after the March
2006 NEXTEL Cup Series Race. This reconfiguration will entail raised
banking to increase side by side racing, and the construction of a new
fan zone and pit road.
