Shortly after the dawning of a new millennium, Homestead-Miami Speedway became the home of the NASCAR Cup Series finale. On Nov. 17, that era will end.
What a grand run the 1.5-mile speedway nestled atop the Florida Keys has had in crowning the champions of America’s most popular motorsports empire.
The brainchild of South Florida racing promoter Ralph Sanchez, the race track came to be in hopes of helping the region recover from the lashing it received from Hurricane Andrew, which devastated the area where the track is located. Ground was broken on Aug. 24, 1993, a year to the day from Andrew’s landfall.
From that beginning, Homestead-Miami Speedway has played a huge role in NASCAR’s heyday — and in its revitalization. The South Florida market, with its vibrant nightlife, tropical atmosphere and race-crazy population, was highly prized by those in power in Daytona Beach, just 305 miles up I-95, and it was much more hip and trendy than Atlanta Motor Speedway, which had hosted the season-ending events for the Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series in the years prior.
Homestead-Miami Speedway opened in 1995, playing host to the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ season finale for the first time. The 1.5-mile oval was not the banked oval it is today: It was a smaller copy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with barely banked turns and four distinct corners. The heavier stock cars had trouble negotiating the layout and the average speeds were much slower than those the Indy cars produced at the track.
As much as the racing in NASCAR’s top series has changed since the first race was run there in 1995, the track has changed as well. From the nearly square Indy copy that was narrow and hard to negotiate to a wider track that still had the same problems, the racing surface was renovated in 1997 to a more conventional oval configuration, though with the same lack of banking. Finally, in 2003, $8.2 million went into designing the current layout, a progressively banked (18-20 degrees) oval that produces thrilling racing and memorable moments.
That will not change. The dates will, and the fact that ISM Raceway in Avondale, Ariz., near Phoenix, will be the new site for championship weekend.
“We know from experience that ISM Raceway puts on exciting races,” said NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton. “With ISC’s investment on the new ISM Raceway, they have created not only a very fan-friendly, but one of the most beautiful stadiums in sports around the country.
“With those facts and others, the decision was made that in 2020 we will end our season here at ISM Raceway and our NASCAR Cup Series champion will be crowned here at ISM.”
Homestead-Miami Speedway, which has hosted the season finale since 2002, will now host the series on March 22.
“Ralph Sanchez’s vision for our track more than 25 years ago was to host spring racing and be a major part of South Florida’s March calendar,” Matthew Becherer, former president of Homestead-Miami Speedway who is now V.P. of Consumer Sales for International Speedway Corp. “Miami has historically hosted many popular events during March, including the Miami Open, the Florida Derby, Ultra and the Calle Ocho Music Festival, among others, and this move will integrate us into this impressive mix. A March race weekend affords us many unique opportunities to entertain the South Florida community as we host NASCAR races for many years to come.”
Warm weather aside, it will be a change from the past 18 seasons.
This year’s race will be the final one as the home of the winner-take-all finale for all three national series at Homestead, and it has been a rousing series of events, to be sure.
The first one took place in 2015 when Kyle Busch won both the race and the title. Despite his gaudy record of races won, it remains Busch’s only Cup Series title.
Jimmie Johnson won his seventh title at Homestead in 2016 with his lone victory in the season finale for Hendrick Motorsports. Martin Truex Jr.’s clinching of a title for furniture maven Barney Visser came the following season and last year saw Joey Logano raise the Cup.
The most memorable Cup Series finale at Homestead has to be the 2011 race, when Tony Stewart outslugged Carl Edwards in an epic, race-long battle. Stewart had to win the race to win the title and he did, but Edwards was a tough out. The now-retired Missouri driver led 119 laps on the night to the Hoosier driver’s 65, but the 32 laps that Stewart led at the end of the race — including the all-important final one — gave him his third and final NASCAR title.
Stewart was relentless over the final segment, steadily pulling away from Edwards as the laps wound down; and when he crossed the finish line under the checkered flag, the two were tied in the standings.
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