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Texas Motor Speedway



 Texas Motor Speedway track layout


Texas Motor Speedway Races

#7 4/9/11 Samsung Mobile 500 7:30PM FOX
2010 Winner: Denny Hamlin

#34 11/6/11 AAA Texas 500 3:00PM ESPN
2010 Winner Denny Hamlin


Latest Fort Worth, Texas, weather conditions and forecast


Click here to share your Texas Speedway Experience


History of the Speedway

The Texas Motor Speedway has been hosting races since the speedway opened in 1997. The speedway sits on 1500 acres of land at the intersection of Interstate 35 and Texas Highway 114 between Fort Worth and Denton, Texas.

More than 200,000 people come to the Dallas/Fort Worth area to watch two NASCAR Cup races on this high speed racetrack where they can watch former race winners like Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carl Edwards.

In February of 1995 Speedway Motorsports announced the decision to build the Speedway. In April Jeff Gordon and Texas natives and brothers Terry and Bobby Labonte were on hand for the ground breaking ceremonies.

On August 18 1995 construction began on the speedway and one year later on July 24 1996 work began on the Lone Star Tower, a ten story building overlooking turn 2.

Local companies rent office space on the first four floors. There are 76 condominiums that range from 1000 to 2000 square feet on the fifth through tenth floors.


Texas Motor Speedway
Photo by ajoythomas. CC 2.0


Track Details

The track is a 1.5 mile quad-oval shape similar in design and speed to the Atlanta Motor Speedway. The front stretch is 2250 feet in length and the backstretch is 1330 feet both are banked at 5 degrees.

Initially the turns had variable banking 24 degrees at the top and 8 degrees at the bottom. This proved difficult for the stock cars to transition from the banked turns to the flatter straightaways.

After just two NASCAR race weekends track officials reconfigured the turns to make it a constant 24 degree banking and ease the exit off of the turns.

The result was to make the track even faster. So fast that the CART open wheel racing series canceled one of its races in 2001 because Doctors were concerned about excessive G-forces on drivers.

This was after Kenny Brack had qualified on the pole with a blistering lap of an 233.447 mile per hour.

Texas Motor Speedway has a unique scoring tower or pole. It counts the laps down and up letting drivers and fans know how many laps have been raced and how many laps are left to race.

When talking about this speedway there is no way to avoid using the most common Texas cliche ...."Everything is bigger in Texas" and that includes this speedway.

Counting the permanent seats, the luxury suites, the club seats, the condominiums and the infield the capacity of the speedway is over 212,000 people.

Between the grass, gravel and paved lots there is close to 660 acres of parking with 80,000 parking spaces.

So getting a seat and a parking spot will not be a problem when coming to a race at Texas.

Race Details

The Texas Motor Speedway didn't start off so good. Thirteen cars wrecked on the first lap of the first race. Jeff Burton avoided the wrecks and won the inaugural race. In the first 12 races held at Texas there was not a repeat winner until Jeff Burton won again on April 15, 2007 at the Samsung/Radioshack 500.

Some drivers just have a knack for the this place, Jeff Burton is one and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is another.

Dale Jr. really likes this place. He won his first career Nationwide series race here in 1998 and then in 2000 Dale Jr. won his first career Cups Series race during his rookie season.

Recent Samsung Mobile 500 Winners

2010 Denny Hamlin
2009 Jeff Gordon
2008 Carl Edwards
2007 Jeff Burton
2006 Kasey Kahne



Texas is such a great racetrack that NASCAR gave the speedway a second race weekend starting in 2005. The second race fell in the final 10 races in the Chase for the Cup. Thats two opportunities to see a race at Texas one in the spring and one in the fall... HINT!...HINT!

Recent Lone Star 500 Winners

2010 Denny Hamlin
2009 Kurt Busch
2008 Carl Edwards
2007 Jimmie Johnson
2006 Tony Stewart

Texas Motor Speedway takes a fan-friendly approach to managing the speedway that is why it has become the standard by which all other tracks have been measured.

If you like high speed and top notch facilities then you should see a race at Texas Motor Speedway the fastest track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit.

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