"America's Home for Racing. The 1.5-mile superspeedway Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner built in 1959 on the outskirts of the Queen City, home of the Coca-Cola 600, set in the heart of NASCAR country, and host of Race 29 of the O'Reilly Chase."
Key Takeaways
- 1.5-mile asphalt superspeedway in Concord, North Carolina, northeast of Charlotte: 7,920 feet around, 24-degree banking in the corners, 5-degree straightaways, a 1,980-foot frontstretch, and a listed capacity of 95,000 with 57 suites.
- Built in 1959 by O. Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner; the first World 600 ran on June 19, 1960. The 600-mile Memorial Day weekend race, now the Coca-Cola 600, remains NASCAR's longest night.
- The heart of a nearly 2,000-acre complex that includes a 2.25-mile road course, the 2.28-mile ROVAL oval-and-road-course hybrid, a four-tenths-mile dirt track, and the four-lane zMAX Dragway.
- The 2026 O'Reilly race runs the 1.5-mile superspeedway, not the ROVAL: the Blue Cross NC 300 on Saturday, October 10, with the Cup Series Bank of America 400 on Sunday, October 11.
- NASCAR's home market: set in the heart of NASCAR country, the speedway generates, by its own accounting, a regional economic impact of approximately $450 million annually.
Location: Concord, North Carolina Track Type: Asphalt superspeedway Length: 1.5 miles (7,920 feet) Banking: 24 degrees in the corners · 5 degrees on the straightaways Frontstretch: 1,980 feet · Backstretch: 1,500 feet Capacity: 95,000, with 57 suites First race: World 600, June 19, 1960 Operator: Speedway Motorsports Also on site: ROVAL (2.28-mile, 17-turn) · 2.25-mile road course · The Dirt Track · zMAX Dragway
The Chase at Charlotte: Race 29
Race 29 of the 33-race season, the fifth of the nine Chase races, runs at the sport's home track on October 10. The Chase is the O'Reilly Series championship: the top 12 drivers in points after Race 24 at Daytona settle the title over the season's final nine races.
| Date | Race | Series | Configuration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturday, Oct 10 | Blue Cross NC 300 | NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series | 1.5-mile superspeedway |
| Sunday, Oct 11 | Bank of America 400 | NASCAR Cup Series | 1.5-mile superspeedway |
The configuration matters: the track's official facts page states that the NASCAR Cup Series, the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, and the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series each compete once per year on the 1.5-mile superspeedway, and the 2026 O'Reilly race runs the big oval rather than the infield ROVAL.
Tickets: the Blue Cross NC 300 event page sells Saturday, Sunday, and weekend options, from grandstand seats to the covered Club Deck, the climate-controlled Clubhouse level, Club Suites, and the all-inclusive Champions Pavilion with garage and pit access. The track's box office is 800-455-FANS.
Overview
Charlotte Motor Speedway is the sport's home field, set in the heart of NASCAR country with the NASCAR Hall of Fame close enough to visit the same weekend, and for more than sixty years the speedway has helped define what a modern NASCAR venue looks like, a run the track sums up in its own slogan: "America's Home for Racing." The signature race is the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR's longest event, run each Memorial Day weekend since the days when it was the World 600.
The 1.5-mile superspeedway is the reference intermediate track: 24-degree corners, a long 1,980-foot frontstretch, and enough width for the field to run multiple lanes. Around it sprawls a nearly 2,000-acre campus of racing: a 2.25-mile road course, a six-tenths-mile karting layout, a quarter-mile oval inside the big track, a one-fifth-mile oval outside Turn 3, the 14,000-seat Dirt Track across the highway, and the zMAX Dragway, the world's first four-lane drag strip. In 2018 the speedway added the ROVAL, a 2.28-mile, 17-turn hybrid that sends cars over the superspeedway's high banks and through a purpose-built infield road course.
History
Smith, Turner, and the World 600 (1959 to 1960)
Charlotte Motor Speedway was designed and built in 1959 by O. Bruton Smith, the Oakboro, North Carolina car dealer and short-track promoter, with Curtis Turner, one of stock car racing's earliest stars, as his primary business partner. They built their 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, staking out the 600-mile distance that still defines NASCAR's longest race.
Bankruptcy and the Long Road Back (1961 to 1975)
Like many superspeedways of the era, the track fell into Chapter 11 reorganization in 1961 and emerged despite lagging ticket sales. Smith left the speedway in 1962, built a fortune in the car business, and steadily bought speedway stock until, by 1975, he was again the majority stockholder and back in control of day-to-day operations.
The Wheeler Era: Building the Modern Speedway (1975 onward)
Smith hired promoter H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler as general manager, and the pair spent the next decades building the facility into an industry standard-setter: thousands of grandstand seats and luxury suites, the seven-story Smith Tower (1988), and in 1984 the 40 condominiums above Turn 1 that made Charlotte the only sports facility in America offering year-round living accommodations (twelve more were added in 1991). A $1.7 million, 1,200-fixture lighting system by MUSCO Lighting of Oskaloosa, Iowa, using mirrors to simulate daylight, was installed in 1992, making Charlotte the first modern superspeedway to host night racing.
The Modern Campus (2000 to today)
The Dirt Track (May 2000) and zMAX Dragway (August 2008) turned the property into a complex covering every discipline, and the ROVAL (2018) reinvented the track's second Cup date. Charlotte remains the flagship of Speedway Motorsports, the company Smith founded, whose portfolio also includes Bristol, Dover, Las Vegas, Texas, Sonoma, and Nashville.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1959 | Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner build the speedway |
| 1960 | First World 600 (June 19) |
| 1961 | Chapter 11 reorganization; the track emerges and racing continues |
| 1975 | Smith regains majority control |
| 1984 | Turn 1 condominiums make the speedway the first US sports facility with year-round housing |
| 1988 | Seven-story Smith Tower opens |
| 1992 | MUSCO lighting installed; first modern superspeedway night racing |
| 2000 | The Dirt Track opens (May) |
| 2008 | zMAX Dragway, the world's first four-lane drag strip, opens (August) |
| 2018 | The ROVAL debuts: 2.28 miles, 17 turns |
| 2026 | The O'Reilly Chase visits with the Blue Cross NC 300 on the 1.5-mile oval (October 10) |
The Racing
Charlotte's 1.5-mile oval is the track every intermediate car is measured against, raced on by teams whose home region surrounds it. The 24-degree banking carries big corner speed, the long frontstretch rewards drive off Turn 4, and multiple grooves come in as rubber lays down. Night racing changes the grip picture as the surface cools, a Charlotte specialty since the 1992 lights.
For the O'Reilly Chase, Race 29 lands mid-Chase, after Darlington, Gateway, Bristol, and Las Vegas have shaped the standings, with a home-region crowd watching drivers race for their championship lives. Track records by series are maintained by the speedway's media office and updated event by event.
Ownership and Management
Charlotte Motor Speedway is the home track of Speedway Motorsports, the company O. Bruton Smith built from the speedway he co-founded. The property hosts two premier NASCAR events each year, the Coca-Cola 600 and the Bank of America 400, plus more than three dozen other events for automotive and motorsports enthusiasts. The track states its philosophy simply: put "Fans First."
Visiting Charlotte Motor Speedway
The speedway is in Concord, North Carolina, northeast of Charlotte. Tickets run from general grandstand seats to the Club Deck, Clubhouse, and suite levels, and the Champions Pavilion package bundles garage and pit access with catering and VIP parking; the box office is 800-455-FANS. Beyond race weekends the campus runs the speedway's own AutoFair automotive events each April and October, karting, and events across the dirt track and dragway. One piece of trivia from the track's own fun-facts list: George Washington ate lunch at a house that once served as the speedway's offices.
See Also
- Las Vegas Motor Speedway Track Guide covers the Chase stop one week before Charlotte, at the portfolio's western anchor.
- O'Reilly Series standings for the live Chase picture.
- The Grand National Show, our weekly show, follows the stories behind the race through the Chase.
2026 O'Reilly Chase tracks
- Darlington Raceway · Race 25
- World Wide Technology Raceway · Race 26
- Bristol Motor Speedway · Race 27
- Las Vegas Motor Speedway · Race 28
- Charlotte Motor Speedway · Race 29
- Phoenix Raceway · Race 30
- Talladega Superspeedway · Race 31
- Martinsville Speedway · Race 32
- Homestead-Miami Speedway · Race 33
O'Reilly Series reference
Track facts compiled from primary sources read August 26, 2026: charlottemotorspeedway.com (Speedway Facts, Track History, and Blue Cross NC 300 event pages). Records by series are maintained by the speedway's media office. Page version 2, August 26, 2026.