Hey how’s it going Nascar fans. Hope everyone is having a productive week. I know I havewhat with new classes starting Tuesday plus it was my birthday. So its been a busy week. Well as you know, we have the All Star race at Charlotte this weekend and the Coca-cola 600 next weekend. I remember going to Lowe’s last year for the All Star Race. I had a great time there. But this year I am going to the big race next weekend instead. I cannot believe it. What a great time we are going to have. I cant wait to get there and go see my friend John at Sprint and have some fun playing guitar hero at their display! I cant wait.
Well lets see about Lowe’s. Stats and track facts. First off Lowe’s was constructed and first opened for racing in 1959 and the first World 600 was run back in 1960. In 1961 the track like many of the day, fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, emerging from that in 1962. In 1975 original owner Bruton Smith acquired majority ownership of the track once again. He hired H.A. Wheeler as a general manager and together they pursued plans to expand and renovate and improve.
They became the first facility of its kind to offer year round living in 1984 with the addition of the condominiums at the track. Towering above turn 1 the original complex housed 40 condominiums. An additional 12 units were added in 1991.
The lighting was installed in 1992 and enabled Lowe’s to be the first to offer racing under the lights at night. A new Sprint cup garage was added in 1994. The garage covers some 20,000 square feet at a cost of 1 million dollars.
Lowe’s is a 1.5 mile quad oval. However there are also the 2.25 mile road course and the karting layout in the infield. There is also a quarter mile asphalt oval that uses parts of the frontstretch and pit road. And there is also a 1/5 mile oval outside turn 3. That’s a lot of tracks. Lowe’s is a great place. You can see everything from any where, there are no bad seats at Lowe’s. Well at least in my opinion anyway. Today with all the additions that have been made over the years, the seating capacity is now an incredible 140,000.
In Nascar news this week Jeff Burton’s team won the pit crew challenge at Charlotte this week. Apparantly they won In record time at Thursday nights competition. Burton said he was really proud of them and that he knows they put a lot of effort into their pit stops. The winning time was 22.115 seconds to beat the team of Reed Sorenson. Let’s hope that luck transpires to the track now. Congratulations to the 31 team. Way to go guys!!
Well the troubled team of Jeremy Mayfield has a new owner and a new driver this week. They have decided to replace Jeremy with J.J. Yeley. He is a nice enough guy. We have pictures with him. Anyways and the new owner is Shana Mayfield, Jeremy’s wife. Shana says they trust J.J. and that he lives close by the shop and is accessible for them from week to week because they don’t want to have to keep changing drivers. I don’t blame them there.
Well that’s about it for now fans. I will be back after the All Star Race. Last year Kasey Kahne won while I was in attendance. I wonder who will win this year? Hopefully somebody good that’s for sure. Have a good rest of the week.
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