Lowes Motor Speedway

Lowe's Motor Speedway was designed and built in 1959 by current chairman O. Bruton Smith. The late Curtis Turner, one of stock car racing's earliest driving stars, was Smith's business partner. At the time Smith, a native of Oakboro, N.C., was an automobile dealer and short-track stock car racing promoter at Concord Motor Speedway and the Charlotte Fairgrounds. Together, they built their dream of a 1.5-mile superspeedway on the outskirts of the Queen City and, on June 19, 1960, the first World 600 was run at the new facility. Total seating capacity is approximately 140,000. Most recently, Lowe's Motor Speedway added the Bellagio of drag strips to its complex with the completion of zMAX Dragway in 2008. The state-of-the-art facility has been praised as the finest drag racing facility in the world by both fans and competitors alike, and opened to a sellout crowd of more than 30,000 for the NHRA Nationals in Sept. 2008.