Kentucky Speedway bulking up for first Sprint Cup race

With 40,000 more seats, when the IndyCar series returns to Kentucky in October the grandstands are going to look deserted

Kentucky Speedway officials are making sure their facility is ready when it hosts its first NASCAR Sprint Cup race in early July.

Improvements to the facility have been ongoing since September in anticipation of the Quaker State 400 on July 9.

The construction of two new 20,000-seat grandstands will bring the track’s seating capacity to 106,000. Several acres have been cleared to accommodate more campgrounds, and pit row has been moved closer to the stands.

Speedway Director of Communications Tim Bray used an analogy to describe the immensity of the current construction project.

“We’ve taken nearly every seat in Great American Ball Park and added them to the seats we already had here," he said with a smile.

Speedway Motorsports Inc. owner Bruton Smith initially estimated the track’s capacity to be 117,000.

“If Bruton says it, it’s probably true," said Mike Schmaltz, the Speedway’s director of integrated marketing. “I don’t doubt anything he says. He’s made a lot of very positive changes around here in a relatively short amount of time."

“We’ve put about $70 million into improvements so far," General Manager Mark Simendinger said, “but Bruton’s coming in here next week, so you never know. Every time he shows up, he adds something else."

When Smith saw how much the new grandstands would alter the fans’ view of the pit area and track, he had pit row moved 200 feet closer to the stands.

“It costs a lot of money to move pit row. Not just the asphalt, but the lights as well," Simendinger said. “We went to Bruton and explained that it would cost a lot of money to move it. And he said, ‘Look, I am not building 40,000 seats and then having pit road be in the wrong place. If we’re going to do this, we need to have pit road where it needs to be.’

“He knows the motorsports business and what people want." Dayton Daily News