Homestead-Miami Speedway

Homestead-Miami Speedway
Location	1 Speedway Boulevard Homestead, Florida 33035
Active from	November 5, 1995 - present
Major events	NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Ford EcoBoost 400 NASCAR Nationwide Series Ford EcoBoost 300 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Ford EcoBoost 200 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series GAINSCO Grand Prix of Miami
Surface	N/A
Length	1.5 mi (2.4 km)
Turns
Lap record	0:24.462 (Sam Hornish, Jr., Penske Racing, 2006, IRL IndyCar Series)

Homestead-Miami Speedway is a motor racing track located in Homestead, Florida. The track, which has several configurations, has promoted several series of racing, including NASCAR, the IRL IndyCar Series, and the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

Since 2002, Homestead-Miami Speedway has hosted the final races of the season in all three of NASCAR's series: the Sprint Cup Series, Nationwide Series, and the Camping World Truck Series. Ford Motor Company sponsors all three of the season-ending races; the races have the names Ford EcoBoost 400, Ford EcoBoost 300, and Ford EcoBoost 200, respectively, and the weekend is marketed as Ford Championship Weekend. The Nationwide Series (then known as the Busch Series) has held its season-ending races at Homestead since 1995.

History

Sunset at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2006

The speedway was constructed, with the efforts of promoter Ralph Sanchez, as part of a plan to help Homestead rebound after the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew. Groundbreaking began August 24, 1993, exactly one year after the hurricane hit.

It opened in November 1995 with a NASCAR Busch Series (currently the Nationwide Series) race, the last race of that season. The Busch Series would continue to hold its season-ending races at Homestead; in 2002 NASCAR's Winston Cup Series and Craftsman Truck Series would also hold their season-ending races at Homestead as well. Since 2002 NASCAR has marketed the seasons-ending Homestead races as Ford Championship Weekend.

In the spring of 1996, the CART series held its first race there.

The track reflects the art deco district of nearby Miami Beach with its liberal use of colors such as aqua, purple and silver. Though the track itself has been considered to be aesthetically pleasing from the outset, initially the racing at Homestead was not considered very good. The track opened as a four-turn, rectangular-oval, based on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's layout, coincidental considering that circuit and Miami Beach were developed by Carl G. Fisher. However, due to its shorter length, the track was not able to maintain the racing characteristics of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Instead, the sharp, flat turns and aprons made passing difficult and lowered overall speed. The geometry also created unfavorably severe crash angles. In 1996, track management attempted to correct the problems by widening the aprons of the turns by as much as 24 ft (7.3m). In the summer of 1997, an $8.2 million reconfiguration project changed the turns from a rectangle to a traditional, continuous turn oval.

In 2003, the track was reconfigured once again. The turns were changed from mostly flat to steep variable banking. In 2005, lights were installed to allow night racing for the first time. The renovations were praised by fans, and the track has produced a number of close finishes, including 2005's last-lap battle between Greg Biffle and Mark Martin.

On March 26, 2006 Indy Racing League driver Paul Dana suffered fatal injuries in the warmup session before the race when he was involved in a high-speed collision with Ed Carpenter at over 215 mph (346 km/h). Other drivers to suffer fatal injuries at the speedway are John Nemechek in a Camping World Truck Race on March 16, 1997, and Jeff Clinton who died in a Grand Am sports car event at the track in March 2002.

In 2009 Homestead became the home to a total of five season-ending racing series events, with the GAINSCO Auto Insurance Indy 300 finale for the IRL IndyCar Series as well as the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series moving to October from their traditional early season slots. The Indy Car series would discontinue its Homestead race while the Rolex Series later changed its Homestead race to a date earlier in the season.

Behind the main grandstand is the Homestead RC Raceway for radio controlled cars, it was used to host the 2011 IFMAR Worlds for 1:8 IC Track cars.

Track configurations

All maps use dashed gray lines for the other courses. Solid gray lines represent other pit road options for the shown course.

Speedway

Road course

Modified Road Course

Records

IndyCar

Type	Distance (miles / km)	Date	Driver	Chassis / Engine	Time	Average Speed (mph / km/h)
Qualifying (1 lap)	1.5 / 2.390	March 25, 2006	Sam Hornish, Jr.	Dallara / Honda	0:00:24.462	218.539 / 351.704
Race (200 laps)	300.000 / 477.975	March 26, 2006	Dan Wheldon	Dallara / Honda	1:46:15.530	167.730 / 269.935

NASCAR

Record	Year	Date	Driver	Car Make	Time	Average Speed (mph)
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Qualifying	2003	November 14	Jamie McMurray	Dodge	29.816	181.111
Race (400 miles)	1999	November 14	Tony Stewart	Pontiac	2:51:14	140.335 (before reconfiguration)
NASCAR Nationwide Series
Qualifying	2004	November 20	Casey Mears	Dodge	30.348	177.936
Race (300 miles)	2001	November 10	Joe Nemechek	Chevy	2:16:10	132.191 (before reconfiguration)
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Qualifying	2012	November 16	Parker Kligerman	Toyota	30.672	176.056
Race (200 miles)	2002	November 15	Ron Hornaday	Chevy	1:30:30	133.260 (before reconfiguration)

NASCAR statistics

Most Wins	3	Greg Biffle, Tony Stewart
Most Top 5s	7	Jeff Gordon
Most Top 10s	11	Jeff Gordon
Starts	14	4 Drivers
Poles	2	4 Drivers
Most Laps Completed	3739	Tony Stewart
Most Laps Led	560	Carl Edwards
Avg. Start*	7.8	Kasey Kahne
Avg. Finish*	6.0	Carl Edwards

* from minimum 4 starts. (As of 11/18/12)

External links

• Homestead-Miami Speedway - Official website
• High Resolution image from Google Maps

This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Autopedia, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.