Homestead Miami Speedway

This aerial panorama of Homestead-Miami Speedway was taken by James Blakeway during the Ford Championship Weekend and the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Championship. Located just outside of Miami, this 1.5-mile oval track started as an idea to help Miami-Dade County recover after Hurricane Andrew devastated the area in 1992. The track opened in 1995, with its inaugural NASCAR NEXTEL cup race on November 14, 1999. The original configuration was a flat oval. Today, after several expansion and renovation projects, the current track has "graduated" 18 to 20-degree variable banked turns, and unique pastel colors that give it a distinctive "South Beach" look. Since it opened, the track has doubled its capacity to 70,000 seats.