The Carquest Auto Parts 300 is a NASCAR Busch Series race that takes place at Lowe's Motor Speedway. It is held the day before the Coca-Cola 600 on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.
Lowe's Motor Speedway (formerly Charlotte Motor Speedway) is a superspeedway in Concord, North Carolina, north of Charlotte. It features a 1.5 mile long quad-oval track that seats 167,000 people, with room for 50,000 more spectators in the infield. Constructed in 1959, it was the first speedway to host nighttime superspeedway racing (in 1992) and to offer year-round residences (in 1984) with 52 condominiums now available over turn one. It is presently owned by, and is the corporate headquarters of, Speedway Motorsports, Inc.. The speedway is considered the homebase of NASCAR, with 90% of NASCAR teams being based within 50 miles. In February 1999, Lowe's bought the naming rights to the speedway, making it the first race track in the country with a corporate sponsor.
Along with the main oval, the speedway also has a 2.25 mile road course in the infield, an 0.6 mile kart course in the infield, a quarter-mile oval using part of the front stretch and pit road, and an 0.2 mile oval outside turn three. Also, across U.S. Highway 29 from the speedway is a 0.4 mile dirt track, opened in May 2000.
The surface of the circuit had started to wear from its last paving in mid-1994, resulting in the track's treatment in a diamond-grinding process to smooth out bumps in 2005 and caused major tire problems during both NASCAR Nextel Cup Series events there, with a record 22 cautions at the showcase Coca-Cola 600, making it the first Nextel Cup Series event to go more than five hours (excluding red flags) in 25 years. Speed increases were also a result of the repaving. After the problem with the tires, speedway officials promptly announced that they plan to repave with a new generation asphalt.