Homestead-Miami Speedway, Oval

Homestead-Miami Speedway is a 1.5-mile oval located south of Homestead in southern Florida, around 31 miles south of Miami. The circuit owes its existence to a natural disaster, having been built as part of the effort to help the city of Homestead recover from the devastation of Hurricane Andrew, with groundbreaking on the 434-acre site in August 1993. It opened in November 1995 as a rectangular, Indianapolis-style four-turn oval, but that layout produced poor racing and safety concerns and was reworked into a continuous-turn 'paperclip' oval with flat six-degree banking in 1997. Even that failed to deliver good racing, so in 2003 a $12 million project transformed the turns into a computer-designed variable banking system of 18 to 20 degrees, sharply improving the competition. The venue is best known for hosting the NASCAR season finale for many years, staging the championship-deciding races of all three national series. Its infield road course drew international attention when the FIA GT Series visited in 1998 and 1999, with Mercedes-Benz CLK-LMs and later a privateer Chrysler Viper among the winners. Night lighting was installed in 2005, and the track today hosts a broad calendar beyond stock cars, including endurance and triathlon events.

Operated by: NASCAR (International Speedway Corporation)