Charlotte eyes IndyCar or IMSA race

Charlotte Roval

Speedway Motorsports Inc. President and CEO Marcus Smith said Saturday that with the creation of Charlotte Motor Speedway’s ROVAL it was possible that IMSA and/or the Verizon IndyCar Series could return to the iconic facility.

IMSA visited the facility in the early 1980s, utilizing the speedway’s old road course. Indy Cars raced on the 1.5-mile oval 1997-98.

The 2.28-mile ROVAL consists of 17 turns and two chicanes, one on the oval’s frontstretch and another on the backstretch. Smith said the most challenging part of preparing the course was the fact they were in unchartered waters.

“We are not doing it as a one-time deal. It’s not a temporary situation," Smith said. “We’re designing it and building it to be a world-class road course."

Charlotte Seating

In addition to developing the new course, speedway officials constructed a pedestrian bridge for those camping in the course’s infield and replaced the grass on the frontstretch apron with 929 tons of sand and 111,500 square feet of artificial field turf. It took six to eight weeks to replace the natural grass. Smith said track officials worked closely with Fields Inc. to find the special synthetic turf.

“They found this specially made (synthetic turf) that has a really high flash point, I think it’s over 2,000 degrees," Smith said. “It doesn’t tear up. It’s a perfect product for us. We’re the only place in North America where this application has been installed."

“When we were doing some testing on the track with Mario Andretti, he was the one who said we needed to have campers on the inside of the track where the road course starts to take shape," Smith said. “We had to do some extra work with walls that we hadn’t planned on. We hadn’t planned on the (pedestrian) bridge that we’re putting in."