Texas Motor Speedway officials are moving ahead with plans to rip
up, redesign and rebuild their misbegotten track near Fort
Worth. After 43 cars wrecked during the Texas 500 weekend of
April 4-5, NASCAR officials strongly suggested that Winston Cup
racing would not return to the year-old facility unless the
track was radically revamped.
"I've had nine engineers in there," says Bruton Smith, chairman
of the track's parent company, Speedway Motorsports Inc. "We're
attacking the situation with a vengeance." That's quite a
turnabout for a man who, during the speedway's inaugural Winston
Cup weekend in 1997, dismissed criticisms of the track and
suggestions that it be rebuilt as "bulls---."
Drivers want smoother transitions into and out of all four turns
plus a wider racing surface so there is more than one groove to
run in. Turn 4, in particular, has become the most hated turn on
the NASCAR circuit—racers say it needs a wider arc so the
outside retaining wall doesn't jut out almost in front of them
as they exit the turn—and Turn 1 was the scene of a 13-car
pileup last year and a 10-car wreck earlier this month. There
was further cause for alarm on the part of drivers during Texas
500 qualifying when it was discovered that water was seeping
through the track's surface.
Drivers hope wrecks will be less common after Texas
Motor Speedway is rebuilt.
(Skip Williams/AP)
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"We're going all around the track, and every little bump we find
is going to be taken out," says Smith. "Since we're making so
many changes, we're going to totally repave the track. We're
going to use a less porous asphalt mix to help eliminate
seepage, and we've already found the water drainage problem."
Racers wonder aloud how the track could have been so
ill-constructed in the first place, while other new ovals on the
Winston Cup tour—in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and even Motegi,
Japan—are virtual racers' dreams. NASCAR has no set guidelines
for track design or construction. "It's really heartbreaking
when you spend $250 million and find professional screwup,"
Smith says. But we're curing that."
During the most recent race weekend, Texas Motor Speedway was
selling T-shirts bearing this arrogant message to drivers: SHUT
UP AND RACE. Now speedway officials are doing what Dale
Earnhardt's car owner, Richard Childress, demanded after the
April 5 race: "Give us something to race on and we'll shut up."
Issue date: April 27, 1998
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