Texas Motor Speedway endured a challenging 2016 season with rainouts and weepers delaying both its NASCAR and INDYCAR weekends.
INDYCAR added a touch of humor with a new title sponsor for its 2017 race, with Rainguard Water Sealers confirmed in December on a multiyear deal.
Now, hopefully the need for said sealers - or other track drying elements - won’t be required as Texas has today announced a new, major repaving project that the speedway plans to complete about a month before the first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series weekend in April.
IndyCar will be back in its usual June date - June 10 - this year after the remainder of the 248-lap race from Lap 72 onwards was postponed from June 12 until August 27 this year.
Track president Eddie Gossage said even though drivers love the old track surface, with it being 20 years since the Speedway first hosted NASCAR Cup and IndyCar races in 1997, the inconvenience to fans was worth the fresh round of investment.
“The fans are why we are doing this,” Gossage said in a release. “The old pavement no longer dried as quickly because through the years of use and weather, the asphalt became porous, kind of like a sponge. Even if we only had a brief shower it was taking us far too long to get the track dried in order to get on to the racing. We owe it to the fans to present the best possible race track so they will be assured of seeing NASCAR and INDYCAR races even if we face some brief inclement weather. This will accomplish that goal.”
Of note, NASCAR Talk’s Nate Ryan hinted in November that a repave at Texas was all but inevitable, and an idea stemmed from NASCAR on NBC reporter and part-time Camping World Truck Series driver Parker Kligerman to not just repave the track, but reconfigure it as well.
The key details of the repave are below, via the release:
- It will be a complete repave, construction of an extensive drainage system and a re-profiling of the 1.5-mile oval configuration.
- Lane Construction Corp., with offices in neighboring Justin, Texas, will handle the repaving project and is known as the preeminent paving company for NASCAR speedways.
- The repave will feature an asphalt mix similar to the surfaces at SMI sister tracks, Kentucky Speedway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The mix used in conjunction with the construction method will aid in the track’s properties of an “aged” track.
- For the installation of the French drainage system, trenches will be cut in numerous locations on the frontstretch and backstretch to provide multiple points for water to drain away from the facility more quickly and efficiently than the current system. The drainable mat installation that will tie into a continuous toe drain will aid in the drainage of the track as well.
- In addition to the repaving and drainage system, Texas Motor Speedway will undergo a re-profiling in Turns 1 and 2 to give the venue a more unique layout from its currently symmetrical 24-degree banking in all four turns. While Turns 3 and 4 will remain unchanged, the banking of Turns 1 and 2 will be decreased to 20 degrees with the racing surface width expanding from 60 to 80 feet in that section of the track.
Here’s the repave details in infographic form (infographic courtesy of Texas Motor Speedway):
