Location | 1 Speedway Drive, Sparta, Kentucky, 41086 |
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Time zone | UTC−5 (UTC−4 DST) |
Coordinates | 38°42′35″N 84°54′58″W / 38.70964°N 84.91624°W |
Capacity | 66,000 |
Owner | Speedway Motorsports (2009–present) Jerry Carroll (1998–2008) |
Broke ground | 18 July 1998 |
Opened | 16 June 2000 |
Construction cost | $153 million |
Major events | Former: NASCAR Cup Series Quaker State 400 (2011–2020) IndyCar Series Kentucky Indy 300 (2000–2011) |
Website | kentuckyspeedway Archived September 28, 2020, at the Wayback Machine |
Tri-oval (2000–present) | |
Surface | Asphalt |
Length | 1.5 miles (2.4 km) |
Turns | 4 |
Banking | Turns 1 and 2: 17° Turns 3 and 4: 14° Frontstretch: 10° Backstretch: 4° |
Race lap record | 0:24.0967 ( Tomas Scheckter, Dallara IR-00, 2002, IndyCar) |
Kentucky Speedway is an inactive 1.5 miles (2.4 km) tri-oval intermediate speedway in Sparta, Kentucky. It has hosted various major races throughout its existence, including NASCAR and IndyCar races. The track is currently owned by Speedway Motorsports, LLC (SMI) and is currently used as a storage and parking lot for various companies. The speedway has a grandstand capacity of 66,000 as of 2020, down from its peak of 106,000 in the early 2010s. It was last led by track general manager Mark Simendinger, who left SMI in 2020. Kentucky Speedway is served by Interstate 71 and Kentucky Route 35.
Correlating with a rise of popularity of stock car racing in the 1990s, then-Turfway Park owner Jerry Carroll sought to seek new profitable ventures after he oversaw Turfway Park's decline in attendance and revenue, eventually deciding to build a modern auto racing facility. The track's construction started in July 1998 and opened nearly two years later, with hopes of securing a NASCAR Cup Series race weekend in the near future. However, by 2005, NASCAR had not given the facility a Cup Series weekend despite Carroll's initial expectations; in response, Carroll decided to file an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR. The lawsuit lasted until 2010, after changes in ownership to Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports (SMI) and two appeals. Smith opted to take a Cup Series race date from an SMI-owned track and move it to Kentucky Speedway in 2011; it immediately saw controversy for a lack of amenities and a traffic clog-up lasted for 20 miles (32 km). After lackluster revenue throughout the following decade, the facility was dropped from the NASCAR schedule starting in 2021, and has since been turned into a multi-use rental complex.