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.