Racers Zoom In On New Texas Track
Auto racing mogul Bruton Smith and aide Eddie Gossage already had scoured Las Vegas, St. Louis and Dallas looking for just the right place to build a racetrack - and still hadn’t found it.
Next, their journey carried them high above an undeveloped track north of Fort Worth, Texas, in a helicopter piloted by the property’s owner, Ross Perot Jr.
“We were wearing headsets, so if we talked, he could hear us,” Gossage said. “So I hit Bruton on the leg, pointed and mouthed, ‘This is it!’ And he shook his head yes.”
Smith and his Speedway Motorsports Inc. bought the 950 acres and went to work. Twenty-six months and $110 million later, the Texas Motor Speedway opens April 5 with the NASCAR Busch Grand National series Coca-Cola 300 and the NASCAR Winston Cup Interstate Batteries 500 the next day.
TMS is the second-largest sports facility in the United States, second only to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Not traveling light
Things are about to get real hectic for the CART Indy-car teams as they prepare for races on consecutive weekends in Surfers Paradise in Australia and Long Beach, Calif.
The PPG Cup drivers will race in the streets of Surfers Paradise on April 6 and then run in the streets of Long Beach on April 13.
Each team is allowed to ship 8,350 pounds of cargo, including two cars per entered driver, for the trip Down Under. The estimated 1 million pounds of cargo will fill 2-1/2 Boeing 747 jumbo jets.
Date change
The final round of the 1997 International Race of Champions series at Michigan International Speedway has been rescheduled.
The last of the four all-star races for this season will be run July 27 at 11 a.m., 2 hours before CART’s U.S. 500 on the 2-mile, high-banked oval.
Originally scheduled for Saturday, July 26, the date was switched because of a conflicting NASCAR Busch Grand National event the same day at the new Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis.
IROC pits 12 drivers from NASCAR, CART and road racing against one another in equally prepared Pontiac Trans-Am Firebirds. They race for points and divide $760,000 at the end of the series, including $225,000 to the champion.
Around the tracks
Mike Groff, who has yet to win a race, is holding onto the point lead in the Indy Racing League standings as the series begins preparing for its second Indianapolis 500.
Groff, who finished sixth in Sunday’s race at Phoenix, holds a lead of 125-114 over Davey Hamilton… . Todd Bodine and Phil Parsons are locked in a tight duel for the Busch Grand National Series points. Bodine has finished in the top 10 of each of the six BGN events this season. He leads Parsons by 14 points.