IRL: Walt Disney World Speedway Unique among 'big-time' tracks
21 January 2000
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.- Among the numerous racetracks built during the motorsports construction boom of the mid-1990s, Walt Disney World Speedway holds a very unique place.
On Jan. 29, the 1-mile tri-oval will play host to the first major race of the year, the Indy Racing Leagues Delphi Indy 200. There will be grandstands teeming with spectators, and atop those grandstands will be a control tower housing race officials and radio and television broadcasters who will call the race live for an international audience.
Structures within the infield will provide hospitality to guests, medical services, and desk space for photographers, media and team and track representatives to work.
Yet before late November 1999, and less than a month after the race, all that will remain is the concrete walls surrounding the track, the asphalt racing surface and a few trailers that serve as offices for the Richard Petty Driving Experience, the tracks tenant for 11 months of the year.
The track certainly presents us with a unique challenge, since virtually all the facilities required to conduct a major motorsports event are temporary and must be shipped in, built to exceed Florida building code standards, then disassembled, said John Lewis, manager of facilities for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation, which conducts the race.
Walt Disney World Speedway, which sits just north of the gates to Disneys Magic Kingdom, was the brainchild of Speedway president Tony George and Michael Waggoner, formerly the manager of motorsports for Walt Disney World.
The two companies envisioned a season-opening race sanctioned by the Indy Racing League that could be used as a marketing tool for Disneys resorts. The first challenge track designers faced before construction was finding a suitable location, as space on Disney property for such a large facility was at a premium.
According to Lewis, the present location of Walt Disney World Speedway was just big enough to fit a 1-mile track. The unique shape of the tricky tri-oval, which features three straightaways of varying lengths and a different degree of banking in each of the turns, was born out of necessity.
The track is surrounded by a Magic Kingdom entrance road on the east, an exit road on the west and the parks southernmost parking lot on the north, so Kevin Forbes, the track designer, had to create an oval that conformed to the existing area, said Lewis.
Forbes, the Speedways director of engineering and construction, is today coordinating the monumental renovation project at IMS that includes construction of a new control tower, media center, Formula One garages and suites, and a 2.61-mile infield road course. The work is being done in anticipation of the inaugural United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis on Sept. 24, 2000 at the Speedway.
Ground was broken for Walt Disney World Speedway on June 10, 1995, and the track and safety barriers were completed on time in November 1995, despite a hurricane, four tropical depressions and 75 inches of rain that accompanied Floridas rainiest-ever wet season.
Lewis begins preparation for the next years Delphi Indy 200 in March - a full 10 months before the event. Design of the facility, including the infield offices, grandstands and midway area located behind the main straightaway, begins in September.
By Thanksgiving we are ready to go with setup, and theres a lot that goes on in a very short time, said Lewis. Bleacher construction takes the entire two months from the end of November to the race, plus we install 10 trailers in the infield that serve as offices, the media center and the medical center.
We design, create and install track signage. We have to cover the parking lot striping in the midway area, then restripe it once the race is over. And I have to apply for a temporary helicopter landing zone with the FAA for our medical helicopter, as well. There are a lot of details.
Seating is provided by Sit Down Connection, a lightweight aluminum temporary seating system owned by Canadian-based Scaffold Connection Corporation. According to Lewis, 12 to 24 persons are busy erecting the grandstands at one time, while as many as 50 Walt Disney employees are on site to handle setup of the phone system, electricity, landscaping, parking, security, and event operations and promotions.
Lewis puts in an estimated 600 man-hours from Thanksgiving through race weekend alone as he manages the whole process.
Once the Delphi Indy 200 takes place, crews have three weeks to disassemble the midway, grandstands and temporary infield offices.
What was briefly a bustling, jam-packed entertainment venue becomes a rather barren racetrack shorn of its amenities. The area where the grandstands and midway occupied becomes a parking lot for the Magic Kingdom. The space comes in handy during the parks peak visitor seasons, spring and summer.
The only activity at Walt Disney World Speedway from February until Indy Racing testing starts in late fall is the Richard Petty Driving Experience. RPDE, which can be contacted at (800) BE-PETTY, offers the public an opportunity to take laps on the oval in a stock car.
I love this event, said Lewis. I was told the first year to come down here and take good notes because somebody else would be doing it the next time, and Ive been here ever since. I take that as a compliment that we have done a good job.
Its really neat that we can go from nothing to having a facility that can host a major sporting event, and then return the area to looking like nothing happened. I know if you come here during the summer, you would have no clues to tell you how big this event really is.
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