My first visit to the Homestead track was for the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, a ‘95 CART event that introduced the “Mini Indy” track to the racing public. South Florida was recovering from one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit the area, and Homestead was among the hardest hit areas.

Why a rural farming area with a predominately Hispanic population was chosen as a sight for a new, major racing venue was a question asked by many, myself included. Perhaps because I was there, and saw the total destruction Mother Nature brought down on these people, I could see the uplift a large facility like this could bring in the way of jobs and outside visitors bringing in money to spend locally.

Unfortunately, the original layout, a shrunken version of Indy’s rectangle, didn’t lend itself to racing NASCAR style cars,[or trucks], very well, so, nice as the facilities might be, no one wanted to touch the asphalt. Realizing that a change was needed, they decided to round out the corners and make it a true oval, flat and wide, at a 1 ½ mile length. The grandstands continued to increase, and every aspect of the events was produced in a first rate manner, yet there was still something missing.

As you will read in the following interview, the owners, management, and drivers all had a firm grasp as to the reason. The racing was just flat boring. The flat oval turned into a one groove track and the races turned into a follow the leader train. It didn’t help that the flat turns also snapped any out of control car straight into the outside wall, most tragically taking the life of John Nemecek in a truck race.

So the dilemma became: We have a first class venue, with 65000 seats, and all the amenities, yet our races are downright boring! As you will read, the answers came from mixing old fashioned knowledge with the latest computer technology to totally rebuild the track once more. And if you think this is no large undertaking, I’ve taken a few pictures that I hope will give you a sense of how large a project this really was. The overhead shots were from the spotters tower, the highest point on the towers, and show the immensity of the project. The lower shots were from the ground level in front of the grandstands, and hopefully give an idea of how this track will be shaped the next time the Big Show comes to Homestead.

Our host for this exclusive interview and tour was Phil de Montmolin, Homestead’s Public Relations Manager, and understandably a proud advocate of the speedway. Before we were shown the actual work in progress, I had the opportunity to ask Phil some questions.

DZ I’d like to start with a few questions regarding guest amenities. I know you have a lot of parking here at the Speedway. In my past experience here, I’ve found getting in is never any problem, you line them up and park them. Getting out, on the other hand, has been a nightmare. Have you addressed that at all?

Pd Yes, definitely one of the biggest priorities here at the Speedway is getting folks in and out. As you say, getting in is one of our strengths, and parking here is free for all of our events. Part of the reason for that is to help with the traffic flow, so that every car doesn’t have to stop and pay a parking fee. Last year we were cursed with some bad weather that washed out some of our parking lots and scrambled our traffic patterns and exit routes in many ways. In this off season, it’s been one of our biggest priorities to rectify that and we’re working with the DOT down here to do some things with the Turnpike as well to hopefully make the way out much easier. It’s something definitely on the top of our minds and the one advice we give to the fans is to carefully study the materials that they receive with their tickets and the visitors guide which includes all the traffic maps, and with their help, and with the traffic patterns that we recommend, it will be smoother for everybody, so we anticipate a big improvement in that area.

DZ Do you still have a “no cooler rule” here?

Pd No, in fact, at all ISC tracks now, coolers are allowed. There are some limitations, they have to be 6x6x12, which is basically a six pack cooler, and they have to be soft sided. The reason for these regulations has to do with [ terrorism security issues] , but we understood that it’s an important part of the culture with race fans, and fans are allowed to come in with a cooler with food and drinks, AND even better, re-entry is allowed. We know days can become long here if you come for all the activities start to finish. So you will be allowed, after getting the appropriate pass at the gate, to go back to your car and then reenter the facility at no additional charge.

DZ As far as camping facilities, I don’t believe you have any infield camping here do you?

Pd No, we’re a little unique in that we have an infield road coarse, and an infield lake that takes up a majority of our infield, and what little space we do have is taken up by the team motor coaches and so forth. Last year, however, we debuted a new RV lot for our fans, which is located just behind turn two. We acquired a new piece of land back there and that’s our new RV lot. It’s a real easy walk from back there and it was a big hit last year.

DZ Is this a hook-up lot? Or is there a dump-station fresh water facility for the Rvs to go to?

Pd There are no hookups. There is a pumpout service available at a small charge, and a dump station - fresh water fillup available at no charge. The spaces are 20 feet by 50 feet, and the cost of the RV lot is $175 [for the entire weekend]. You can arrive as early as Wednesday, the eve of the beginning of Race weekend, and stay until Monday morning, so you don’t have to leave after the race Sunday evening. There is twenty-four hour security and portable restrooms.

DZ For the big race weekend, what kind of entertainment do you have lined up for non-race times? Do you have any names available yet?

Pd It’s still in the works, but anticipate some big announcements in the next few weeks as far as pre AND post race entertainment. We’re a little unique in that we host the Championships for all three series, and in addition to the typical pre-race shows that you find at most any NASCAR event, we put on a post-race celebration where we crown the new Champions. Especially that Sunday for the Winston Cup Celebration. We even allow the fans on Sunday to come on down onto the track. We’ll open up the gates and the fans can come on down and get close to the stage where the new Winston Cup Champion is crowned. This year will be the final year that a “Winston Cup” Champion will be crowned so there will be a lot of sentimental value as 33 years of Winston Cup Racing comes to a close and Nextel takes over next year. So stay tuned for some announcements regarding entertainment, and one other thing I’d like to point out, on Thursday night of race weekend [Nov. 13], we do put on a street festival up in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Last year was the first year for this event, it’s called “Ford Championship Weekend Race Fest”, with show cars, driver autograph appearances, live music, and all sorts of displays. We shut down the streets in downtown Ft. Lauderdale to put on this party. It starts in the middle of the afternoon and goes on till midnight that night. It’s free to the public and a chance for the fans to have some fun in one of the better entertainment areas of South Florida.

DZ OK, I have some questions about the new track. I see New Hampshire redid their track in a somewhat similar way [progressive banking]. Did you work with them in any way on design?

Pd This track is unique and the first of it’s kind whereby it was designed almost entirely through the help of computers, and through the latest in technology. GoodYear was a big part of this in providing the technology and the brainpower and the computers to make it all work. And basically what they did to come up with that variable banking system was to place three cars on the start -finish line, three wide, and kept on tweaking it by increasing the banking up the track to where the three cars would finish at the same exact time, going by the same horsepower etc. whereby, by computer design, there are three equal grooves throughout the racetrack. That would satisfy exactly what we are trying to accomplish with this project in side-by-side racing. It’s the first track of it’s kind that has been designed with this kind of technology, by computers, where there are three precisely equal grooves, mathematically, so we’re real excited to see the actual results. One kind of side note is that EA Sports, who does the video games for NASCAR, they’re so meticulous as far as designing their video games exactly the way the tracks are themselves, they come out and spend days researching and so forth. Using the GoodYear and computer models, they went ahead and designed the video game for the new Homestead Speedway, and according to the video game, it looks great. The transitions in and out of the turns work perfectly and indeed there are three grooves all the way around the track. I know some of the teams and drivers are trying to get their hands on that game for a little early preparation. We’re definitely proud to be “state of the art” with a brand new track and it could be kind of the wave of the future. We’re kind of fortunate in the timing, because had we gone forward with this project just a few years ago, all this technology would not have been available, so it will be fun to see the end result with real life cars on the track.

DZ Do you know about the asphalt formula being used on the track?

Pd I’ll have to follow up on exactly where it comes from, but I do understand that this asphalt mix is indeed a newer version than what’s been used in the past. One of the benefits is that it cures much quicker. In the old days it would take a month and a half or two months to cure, in this case it will only take a few weeks, which will keep us within our time lines and timetables. I understand they’re bringing in limestone from Georgia. You may have seen on the way in, across the street in the parking lot there actually is an asphalt plant set up where they are blending the asphalt compounds, and that way they just have to ship it across the street, so they’re doing it all here on the spot.

DZ You mentioned GoodYear helping with the design, did any drivers help out with designing the new track?

Pd Well, our track president Curtis Gray spent the months prior to the start of this project spending time visiting drivers at different tracks. He did one trip in particular to Talledaga and spent a lot of time in the garage talking to the drivers and getting their input, and for the most part everybody agreed that something should be done to improve the racing for the fans. There were a couple guys who liked the old track because they had success on the track, i.e. Tony Stewart, but most everyone understood where we were coming from, that something needed to be done in order to make the racing more exciting for the fans. But they all had their own theories on exactly what degree of banking and so forth, everyone had their own opinion, which you would imagine. But since we made the announcement and moved forward with the project, we’ve kind of doubled back. We were up at the Pepsi 400 in Daytona in meeting with a lot of the drivers, owners, crew chiefs, media, and race fans, and the excitement level is huge, in the anticipation to try out this new track. We always felt, and the whole racing community always felt, that we had most everything going for us down here, the location, the state of the art facility with all the amenities, the final race of the year in all three series, everything accept the “on track” product that the race fans really demanded. So we had everything going for us down here and that was the final piece of the puzzle, the final ingredient, to make this raceway all that it can be.

DZ Have you had any drivers come down to see it since this project started.?

Pd The only one, and this is a kind of funny story, is Tony Stewart. The day after the Pepsi 400 the drivers had Sunday off, and Stewart decided to go on a scuba diving trip down in Key Largo, and after you scuba dive, you’re not allowed to get on an airplane for something like twelve hours, so he had some time to kill on his way back to Miami to the airport. He decided to stop by here at the track. So Tony stops by here going on midnight Sunday night, he pulls up to the gate and the night security guard greets Tony, and he says, Hi, I’m Tony Stewart and I’d like to come inside and see the track. Well the security guard was a little taken aback and ID’d him. Tony showed him his NASCAR hard card and he said yep, it really is Tony Stewart. The security guard called his boss and said “ hey I’m not kidding , I’ve got Tony Stewart here and he wants to see the track, what should I do?” So his boss says, fine take him inside and drive him around the apron. So the only sneak peek a driver has gotten is that, if that could even warrant one, being midnight, with the use of headlights, on a construction project. There was a lot of kidding in the garage after that story came out that Tony may have received some sort of advantage but there’s no way that’s possible. He did say though, following that, that he was impressed with how much progress we had made, and he kind of changed his tune, because he was one of the guys who early on said he liked the track the way it was, which is kind of understandable considering he won the first two races here and was crowned the Winston Cup Champion here last year. After that visit I think he realized why we’re doing this project, and perhaps we turned him around as well.

DZ What will the official length of the track be now?

Pd That will remain the same. Still 1.5 miles. The one change of note that sometimes gets lost in all this discussion is that the track is being narrowed. It was 72 feet wide, it will now be 55 feet wide. The reason being, we’re really trying to encourage that tight, side by side racing. There’s some tracks that do have the multiple grooves around the track, but because of the width of the track the cars sometimes wind up spaced way far apart. What we’re trying to encourage is that bangin’ , classic NASCAR type style where these guys are really tight, yet side by side.

DZ I see by your test schedule that all the testing is going to be timed tight up against the race weekend. Are you bringing anybody in to run some laps to check things out, or is the testing it?

Pd NASCAR has mandated all this, being a new track and considering the points championship, to give all the teams an equal opportunity, an equal footing, in these three races, NASCAR has decided not to allow private advanced testing like they usually would.

DZ So the teams won’t be allowed to use the track as one of there test sessions, at least this year.

Pd Right, next year will be back to normal. So what’s happening is, there will be a GoodYear tire test obviously, so they can figure out what kind of tire to use on this track, but then, come race week, on Monday Nov. 10, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series will have an all day open practice session. Tuesday, Nov.11, the Busch Series will have an all day practice session, and Wednesday Nov. 12, Winston Cup series will have an all day open practice session. The way we’re kind of equating it is, imagine the kind of action you see during a happy hour final practice.

DZ So it will be a multiple car practice, at least part of the day?

Pd It will be multiple car the WHOLE day. In this case because there are so many cars that need to learn the track, it’s going to be truly an open practice, sort of like a happy hour scenario but 8 hours long, so it’s something that we’re certainly encouraging fans to come out and watch because that will be a true debut of the track. It’s going to be manic with these guys trying to gather information and so forth. What we’re hearing also, on that whole information gathering theme, is that some Winston Cup guys are going to be entering the Busch or the Craftsman Truck race, to just give them more experience on the track. It’s going to be really interesting this year as the track debuts.

DZ With NASCAR not having there own safety crews, where are your safety personnel from?

Pd It’s local rescue and firefighting crews from here in the South Florida area. Most of them have considerable experience, we opened in 1995 and a lot of them have been here since day one. So we’re real confident with the group we’ve got here.

DZ How far is the nearest trauma center from here by helicopter?

Pd The nearest trauma center is in the Miami area. It’s called Jackson Memorial Hospital, the Ryder Trauma center, and I think it takes about twenty minutes by air to get there.

DZ I would assume your on-sight medical center is pretty extensive too?

Pd Yes, right in the infield we’ve got one of the finest on site medical centers on the circuit. And it’s fully staffed with doctors and nurses, 24-7, throughout the weekend. The helipad is right there as well, and it even goes so far as having a waiting room for the family members. It’s in a sense a miniature hospital.

DZ That’s about it for my questions so is there anything you’d like to throw in?

Pd The one message that we’re really trying to get out to all the fans, especially the fans down here in Florida and the locals, is hurry up and get your tickets. The reason being that, quite honestly, a lot of the fans left us after they saw the quality of racing those first few years, and with the new track and banking, ticket sales have been more rapid than ever, and we really want to make sure that the fans that have been with us since day one, and those that have in the past been able to wait right up till race week and still get good seats, that’s not going to be the case this year, so we want to make sure that fans have the opportunity to get a good seat before it’s too late. It’s unlike any event we’ve had in the past and it will no doubt be the biggest race we’ve ever had here.

DZ How many seats do you have in your grandstands now?

Pd There’s 65,000

DZ I’ve always been impressed with the way your grandstands are elevated so even in the lower seats you can see the track perfectly.

Pd That’s by design, and another part of that is that the backstretch is actually ten feet higher than the front stretch, and what that does is allow people in the lower rows to actually see the action on the backstretch. We’re definitely proud of what we can offer the race fans as far as their experience here.

Following this conversation Phil took us up to the top of the tower for a spotters eye view, and the view is nothing short of stunning. The construction vehicles filling and grading, the new walls already in place, and a sense of how massive this project really is.

During this time I asked Phil about the SAFER walls and he assured me that they will be installed by race week, barring unforseen circumstances.

After our departure from Phil and the tower, we walked through under the grandstands, through the gardens that occupy much of the under-grandstand area and provide a natural air-conditioning effect, to the frontstretch wall, and once more got the feel for how high the new banking really is. A quick trip up the grandstand steps verified that even the lowest seats still have an excellent view, although it appears some in the turn one area may be blocked by the height of the new banking. The room for expansion lies to the other end of the track in the turn 4 area. And Phil told me that expansion will take place as the demand dictates.

Over all, we were very impressed with the effort being put forth, and the candor with which they admit that improvement was sorely needed. I look forward to going back for race week, and hope you can make it down too.

Homestead Miami Speedway has one of the most extensive websites in racing, and for just about anything else you’d like to know, visit them at HomesteadMiamiSpeedway.com

Note: Since this article was originally published, I have recieved a number of complaint-questions regarding the rest room facilities at Homestead Miami Speedway. I will not address this issue until I hear from the proper sources at the Speedway, but I will follow up on this and keep the fans informed.Danny Z UPDATE:
To our Readers: Phil at Homestead Speedway has been very obliging in answering inquiries from the fans, and here are a couple of updates from him.

Regarding restroom facilities:

Thanks for letting us know the feedback you've heard from some of your readers regarding the restrooms here at the Speedway. We have a full-time Speedway Operations employee who spends the entire race weekend checking on the restrooms for any potential service problems that may affect the conditions of the restrooms or any problems that could result in a long wait. We are going to intensify this person's role to make sure there are no potential problems to create unnecessary waits at the restrooms.

The lines for the restrooms typically grow longer immediately following the race as they would at any major event. If the line does seem long, one recommendation for race fans is to walk to the next restroom where the line may very well be shorter - the restrooms are located less than 100 feet apart throughout the facility. We'll continue monitoring the restroom situation and make adjustments if need be.

I've checked into the situation and learned that we actually receive very few complaints from our race fans regarding our restroom facilities. We are confident that the number of restroom facilities we have is more than adequate for the demand that we experience during our race weekends.

But having heard your readers concerns, we will re-evaluate our numbers while also stepping up our monitoring system.

Regarding the construction project:

As for the banking project - the final phase of the project is now underway - that is the asphalting...They are mixing the asphalt right here on site - its a new blend that has some granite that we've imported from Georgia in it...It's a state-of-the-art asphalt mix that will cure in a week or two as opposed to the typical month-long curing process. Everything still looks on target for a completion date the first part of October.

Regarding entertainment;

Pre and post race entertainment is still in the works...I'll let you know as soon as we've firmed anything up - expect some big announcments in the next month or so.

Thanks to Phil for his attention, and thanks to the readers who have voiced questions and concerns.
Danny Zeeff

Don’t forget to pray for our brave servicemen and women wherever they serve this great country, and Happy Racin’ Danny Zeeff

Dannyz@insidethepitbox.com