Daytona International Speedway is undergoing its first major renovation in 55 years . Its first ever , really . On a recent sojourn , we found out just how far 40 million tons of brand , miles of fiber , and an centre towards the future tense will take an age behemoth — one that can swallow 14 football game stadiums whole .
Full disclosure : International Speedway Corporation , the company that operates Daytona International Speedway , covered my travel to Florida and two nights ’ accommodations to see and get a line about the massive construction project . intellectual nourishment and drinks were included , sunscreen was not .
Daytona operates about 250 days a year , host races for sport cars , motorcycle , go - karts , and thanks to an infield lake , even the casual powerboat competition . But the big spectator and telecasting event at this track — and one of the nation ’s most popular sporting event — is the Daytona 500 , the chess opening raceway of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season .
That have in mind fans filling every one of Daytona ’s 147,000 seats , some of which are the original fold metal chairperson installed in 1959 . add up to that a seven - story mount to progress to the nosebleeds ( where you get the right view of the 2.5 mile oval ) , public treasury - style urinals in the serviceman ’s restrooms , and no shelter from the good - daily coastal rain shower , and Daytona feel less like a major motorsports attractive force and more like a gigantic gamy school football bowl .
The view from the current top row . When sodding , 30 more rows will rise above this stop . The place nearest the track , original metal folding chairs , will disappear .
Fifty - five old age of sit down innovation separate the sure-enough and new perch .
Daytona Rising , an extensive $ 400 million restoration , target to remedy that . The undertaking , which unwrap ground in 2013 , will duplicate the number of restrooms , triple the concession stand up , and add a mountain of luxury suites . It will also create 11 “ neighborhoods ; ” shaded , Wi - Fi - equip field where fans can pucker to decompress or ( more probable ) take shelter from sun or showers likewise . Daytona go up will extend the covered stand up by seven stories , tot up 40 escalators and 14 elevators for entree .
International Speedway Corp. wants Daytona to be a “ racing stadium , ” as spacious and well - appointed as the newest NFL and NBA facilities . That mean change what ’s mostly been a concrete Hell for die - knockout racing fans into a more innovative and ask over space . “ multitude do n’t go to sport event anymore , ” Daytona International Speedway ’s president Joie Chitwood severalise me . “ They go to social event that affect sports . ”
It also means bring race daytime into the 21st century . Brandon McNulty , International Speedway Corp. ’s main technology ship’s officer , wants a more immersive , personalized experience for fans in the stands . Flip on a NASCAR airstream on TV , and you ’ll see what he ’s up against : The screen fills with gage and graphs telling you each railroad car ’s speed , quickening or braking , and lick time , all in material - time . Not to mention the hundreds of different television camera lean around the track and inside the auto .
As Modern fan begin displace NASCAR ’s old guard in the stands , they bring with them the expected value of both TV hearing and technical school natives . “ The younger demographic is more demanding , ” McNulty told me . “ Big video is great , but fans want to see replay whenever , not wait for the filmdom in the baseball diamond . There are expectations that these thing are useable . ”
McNulty is eyeing ways of bringing that data - immersive experience to the grandstands . “ We have this reckoner in each racing car . The cars are amply instrumented . How do we get that into fans hands ? ” he necessitate . “ What tech can we cater devotee to interpret what ’s go on on the track in front of them ? ”
ill-use one in revamping Daytona is laying the substructure : Replacing miles of original coaxial cable with fibre oculus and ethernet , increasing cubicle telephone reportage ( and eventually Wi - Fi ) for fans , and beefing up communications support for the 1,200 media that settle on the track for the Daytona 500 .
Once that ’s in place , McNulty can depart working to bring his vision of a “ Minority Report converge Star Trek ” experience to the fans in the stands . That enhanced experience could come through wearable , Google Glass , or more likely , through the smartphones already wandering the caterpillar tread in their pocket .
The survive covered stand end at the top of the Gatorade and Coca - Cola signs ; above them , the beginnings of 30 rows of new seating .
“ What I desire to do is understand enough about the fan , whether it ’s individualized or generalized , that I can give them information that ’s relevant to them that makes their experience better , ” McNulty said . “ The challenge is opt - in . How do I incentivize the fan that what I ’m doing will make the experience better ? I do n’t desire to be swelled Brother and look at what you ’re doing , I want to find a elbow room that what I ’m really doing is relevant and useful to you . ”
McNulty painted the setting for me : Upon go in the primer of Daytona International Speedway , you ’d get a notice on your earpiece , evidence you which of the five fresh - built entrances ( “ Injectors ” in Daytona ’s parlance ) will bring you closest to your seats . If you ’re a regular at the racecourse , maybe it would accredit how often you visit , and offer you a discount on a beer or a spicy dog .
When the race is over , your earphone would know which off - site lot you parked in . You ’d get a message confirm your reserved seat on the 9:45PM shuttle to your mass , and traffic updates narrate you which itinerary is the flying to return home or to your hotel .
This vision would require building an app that not only make love where you are on - internet site , but that you ’d trust with information about basically your entire trip to Daytona . There ’s a challenge in convincing any crowd , NASCAR or otherwise , to opt - in to cover like this . Race weekends are a time for fans to kick back and relax , not parse terms and conditions .
So how do you bring an app with beacon - powered pushing telling to a race raceway that allow smoke in the grandstands until 2012 ? “ We have to be very well aware that we have a current and existent rooter base that ’s an older demographic , that may not be as mobile - technical school or socially tie in , ” McNulty said . “ But we have to be prepared for the younger demographic , and their first moment are only growing solar day by daylight . ”
In purchase order for this dream to become real , fans would have to choose Es - tag — which offer the facility valuable user information — over dataless newspaper ticket that are so easy handed off ( or sold ) . It ’s up to McNulty and his squad to convince sports fan of the time value of the system , and somehow assure them that it ’s not an Orwellian ploy . “ We postulate to identify fans , we need to help our partners build their ROI [ Return on Investments ] so they outride in the sport , ” he say me . “ But we have to be very careful all along about check that that we do n’t cross any line where we call on into Big Brother . ” And yes , that ’s the 2d prison term Big Brother derive up in our conversation . It also was n’t the last . Clearly it ’s an region of concern .
Also of concern ? How to deliver of that technological advancement to the massively update Modern race facility . It ’s a huge undertaking . Rossetti , the design business firm handle the project , specializes in sports stadiums and arenas . But with a main confluence that spans the full duration of the track ’s one - mile front stretch , Daytona ’s 2.5 million straight foot award a altogether unique challenge . Indeed , as we saw during an engineering presentation , Daytona ’s step could live with nearly 15 Meadowlands — sorry , MetLife — Stadiums .
With a task of this size , the steel alone could give a mental synthesis foreman nightmares . 40 million pounds of it will make up the skeleton of the young Daytona , a full one percent of the U.S. ’s one-year sword yield . gratefully , each of the 40,000 beams is tag with a barcode and checked by iPad - wield engineers to check that it ’s headed right where the blueprints apprise it .
Those “ blueprints ” are neither blue nor print ; for this project , traditional schematic were replace by a massive , strong - crusade - sized three-D rendering . The wireframe was built from a virtual “ dot cloud ” of the existing social organization , mensurate using a laser scanner to give engineers the exact dimension of the old covered stand without having to break out tape measures and surveyor ’s equipment . The 1959 structure is solid , but a chip willy-nilly laid out : The grandstand follow the exact bend of the trail in some spots , and disregard it completely in others .
building is slate for mop up in 2016 . Thanks to an elaborate dance of alternate entrances , temporary tag gates , separate walkways through construction zones , and impermanent seating area arrangement , the program is for the track ’s 250 - daytime - a - year event agenda , including NASCAR ’s Daytona 500 , to go undisturbed by structure .
If all goes to architectural plan , Daytona Rising could convey a huge shift in the live racing experience . Much remains to be seen : Will the track be able to deliver on its grand vision for fan interaction ? Will the enhanced experience be enticing enough for fans to opt in ? Will a shiny new “ racing stadium ” help appeal the kind of rooter that do n’t already come to the track decorate out in their pet driver ’s cogwheel ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ys5wTWJ_Yg
Bill France , Sr . , built Daytona International Speedway as a permanent home base for the slackly - sanctioned racing that used to go on at the sandlike beach not far down the road . Motorsports — car , drivers , fans , and all — have come a long way since then . But it ’s more clear than ever that in Daytona , there ’s no such matter as slowing down .
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