Kansas Speedway

Kansas Speedway is a 1.5-mile tri-oval NASCAR racetrack in western Kansas City, Kansas, opened June 2, 2001 at a construction cost of $287 million. The anchor tenant of the Village West development in Wyandotte County — alongside the Legends retail center and Sporting Park — it hosts two annual NASCAR Cup Series weekends and is directly attached to the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway (opened February 2012).¹

Overview

Opened	June 2, 20011
Owner	NASCAR (2019–present); International Speedway Corporation (ISC) 2001–20181
Construction cost	$287 million1
Oval	1.500 miles, tri-oval; progressive banking 17–20° in turns1
Road course	2.370 miles, added 20121
Capacity	48,000 (2019); peak ~82,000 in the mid-2000s1
Casino	Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway, opened Feb 2012, 268,000 sq ft, ~2,300 slots1

History

Kansas Speedway opened June 2, 2001 as an International Speedway Corporation (ISC) facility, built to bring big-league NASCAR racing to the Kansas City market. Its 1.5-mile tri-oval used progressive banking (17–20° in the turns, 10° front stretch, 5° back), a design profile common to ISC’s early-2000s “cookie cutter” mile-and-a-half tracks. Construction cost was $287 million USD.¹

A 2.370-mile road course was added in a 2012 renovation cycle. Also in February 2012, the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway — a joint venture with Penn Entertainment — opened on the property, a 268,000-square-foot facility with roughly 2,300 slot machines and a Hollywood-themed retail concourse. In 2019 ISC merged into NASCAR, which now owns the track directly. Grandstand capacity was reduced from its mid-2000s peak of roughly 82,000 down to the current 48,000 as part of the same era of NASCAR right-sizing.¹

Racing calendar

The track hosts two annual NASCAR Cup Series weekends:

• Spring — AdventHealth 400 (Cup Series)¹
• Fall — Hollywood Casino 400 (Cup Series)¹

Supporting NASCAR-series races on each weekend include the Kansas Lottery 300 and the Heart of America 200.¹ The IndyCar Series ran the RoadRunner Turbo Indy 300 at Kansas annually from 2001 through 2010, with the series eventually dropping the date over NASCAR scheduling conflicts.¹

Sources

See also

• kansas-city-kansas
• wyandotte-county
• legends-outlets
• sporting-park
• Wiki

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Kansas Speedway.” — asserts: opening June 2, 2001; location 400 Speedway Boulevard, Kansas City, KS in Wyandotte County; ownership by NASCAR since 2019 (previously ISC 2001–2018); construction cost $287 million; capacity 48,000 (2019), peak ~82,000 mid-2000s; 1.5-mile oval with progressive banking 17–20° turns / 10° front stretch / 5° back stretch; 2.370-mile road course added 2012; two annual Cup Series weekends (AdventHealth 400, Hollywood Casino 400); Kansas Lottery 300 and Heart of America 200 support races; Hollywood Casino opened February 2012 (joint venture with Penn Entertainment), 268,000 sq ft, ~2,300 slots; IndyCar RoadRunner Turbo Indy 300 held 2001–2010. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴