Texas Motor Speedway

I have not been very good this year about keeping up with blog entries.  That is not a serious problem, except it defeats the purpose of this being a scrapbook of sorts for me.  I love to go back and relive some of our adventures, even if they are only mini (or nano) adventures.  I know in the past I have thought I would go back and fill in the things that I had not posted, but then I never do.  My goal is to do better.  To get caught up on some of the things I have been ignoring, here is the first of several belated posts on miscellaneous things of interest (at least to me) over the past several months.

Texas Motor Speedway Tour.  In November we toured the Texas Motor Speedway as part of the UNT Retiree Association group tour.   The Texas Motor Speedway has a range of different types of races, including both Indy car and NASCAR.  Neither of us are race fans, but we thought it would be fun to see this huge track up close and personal.

It really is mammoth, as we knew all too well from driving by many times on the interstate.  The infield is 4.5 times the footprint of AT&T stadium.  Total permanent seating is 128,655, with an estimated total capacity of 181,655.  Despite the enormity of the place, it did not feel nearly as big as I thought it would when I was inside.   

The Frog next to one of the race cars

We got to see a wide range of places, including inside one of the luxury suites.  I was surprised how much of the 1.5 mile track you could see from up there. 

In one of the luxury suites

From the luxury suite looking towards the north

 

Looking out over the finish line from the luxury suite.  The Big Hoss TV screen is across the track a bit to the left.  Also barely visible is the infield road course--something I did not know existed.

We could also see across to "Big Hoss", the large high definition TV screen.  It was not on so we could not judge for ourselves, but it is supposedly easily visible from the main grandstands.  It is as tall as a twelve story building and, at least at the time it was installed in 2014, was the largest HD TV in the world.  I guess it is a way to get instant replays even at the track.

Big Hoss, 218 x 94.6 feet, weighing in at 108 tons as compared to other local sports screens, at least at the time it was installed

Driving around the track.  The real highlight of the trip was riding around the track while crowded into one of the 16 seat vans.  It never felt like we were going very fast, but the driver said we were going over 70 mph.  I guess the lack of a sense of speed was due to the vastness of the place and to the extreme banking of the track, 24 degrees in the turns and 5 degrees in the straightaways!

I had read some of these facts about the track before, but it was a lot of fun to experience the place first hand.  The tour took more than two hours and was definitely worthwhile.