Daytona International Speedway goes from grandstand to motorsports stadium.
The finish of the Daytona 500 was the closest ever between first and second place when Denny Hamlin edged Martin Truex Jr. to win by .011. The sprawling new motorsports stadium that hosted the 58th edition of the race, however, was light years from the venue’s previous speedway incarnation.
More than 50 years after the most iconic track in stock car racing first introduced high-banked turns and the tri-oval design to motorsports, Daytona International Speedway (DIS) created the world’s first motorsports stadium with a redeveloped project dubbed DAYTONA Rising that enabled DIS to improve a historically antiquated motorsports fan experience, offer elevated hospitality options and position itself to host new programming and events.
“The elevated options and amenities have created a premium experience that matches up with what people expect when attending sports events at modern venues,” said Daytona International Speedway President Joie Chitwood III.
Indeed, the venue is still technically called a speedway, but with the new amenities and structure, the facility provides more of a stadium experience than a traditional grandstand experience.
“The initial conversation was about the identity and not necessarily the function (of the stadium),” said Tony Reiner, project design lead and senior designer with Detroit-based architect Rossetti. “There was a drive to make this feel like a professional sports arena and not just grandstands. Through that dialogue we revealed a lot of problems with the overall existing functionality because there was no flow and it was difficult to navigate through. There was not really any strong identity for that next generation of NASCAR fans. That’s when we really started to understand that the attention span of the younger fan isn’t as long and they need the additional amenities beyond just a race. Those were missing.”
Reiner said that at the same time consideration was also given to long-time race fans who, as they aged, had more difficulty getting up to their seats.
“There were no elevators or escalators,” he said. “Those were all some of the right ingredients from the start to just say let’s redo the entire project. With millions and millions of fans, why not just do it right and redo the whole grandstand and give it that professional sports arena feel and make it an overall better experience?”
Ground was broken on July 5, 2013, for a mammoth $400-million project privately funded by International Speedway Corporation, the parent company of DIS, to include 101,500 permanent, wider and more comfortable seats that are no longer metallic chairs requiring a seat cushion but stadium chairs with cup holders, contour seats, and arm rests, and three times as many concession stands. DAYTONA Rising is expected to create 6,300 jobs, $300 million in labor income and over $85 million in tax revenue.
Mammoth is not an overstatement for the new motorsports stadium.
“Approximately one percent of the annual U.S. steel output was used to construct the nearly mile-long front stretch and required designers to compensate for the curvature of the earth,” Chitwood said. “We used approximately 4,268 miles of fiber optic cable, enough to connect to the North Pole, and 1,600 miles of data cable were implemented to create Wi-Fi access and connectivity across 11 football field-size neighborhoods and some of the most high traffic areas of the stadium.”
“One cool diagram we have in our office is where if somebody took the Empire State Building and rotated it 90 degrees you would have three of those for the length of the speedway and you’re starting to understand how massive this stadium is,” Reiner added. “Plus they really stepped up their game in terms of bandwidth. Fans will have a much better time posting and being online. That’s definitely a part of what they’re providing as a reinvention.”
But before one can get inside and be wowed and awed by the 60 luxury suites, twice as many restrooms, three different concourse levels, two new and larger video display boards in the infield and an upgraded video board and viewing experience in the Sprint FANZONE, 40 escalators (the most of any outdoor sports stadium) and 17 elevators. Patrons enter through five expanded and redesigned entrances called injectors, a nod to industry parlance that leads fans to a series of escalators and elevators and transports them to the three different concourse levels.
The Toyota injector.
“When we conceptualized the whole project and worked to create an overall vision of what the project was going to be about, we broke through on this idea about injectors, which became one of the featured design elements in the stadium,” Reiner said. “The entry is that focal point that says what injector you’re in and they are easily recognizable since there are only five of them. That’s kind of your starting point for your experience.
“In creating the injector points we also saw an area that could receive branding and sponsorship. That way the rest of the building is fairly clean and the value of that sponsorship is much greater because it is concentrated.”
Each level features spacious social areas, or “neighborhoods,” along the nearly mile-long front stretch. Each neighborhood carries its own identity and gives fans an opportunity to not only get a mile of walking exercise but to immerse themselves in various social areas complete with food and drink and televisions.
“The neighborhoods and injectors have a really comfortable scale and there’s clarity of how to move through the facility,” Reiner said. “There is great width on the concourse so you’re not going to have to ever worry about congestion. There is great queuing for food and beverage and plenty of restrooms so you are not dealing with long lines. The flow in and out when you are going through these concessions to your seat is much more fluid and clear and simple for the fan.”
Reiner said that the neighborhoods are “clustered to create an atmosphere that defines a space or station and feels more like a club.”
Now that the DAYTONA Rising project has risen with more than 100,000 square feet of fan engagement including 20,000 square feet of educational and entertainment space, both architect and venue operator can admire how this motorsports stadium is different than anything racing fans have ever experienced.
“We have created new criteria for NASCAR sightlines,” Chitwood said. “There are 30 individual sight line views of the race track versus an average of six sight line views for other sports venues. That is unprecedented.”
“Just the pure scale of the project makes it different,” said Reiner, who was joined by a large team including two other senior designers on the project including Matt Taylor, whose work was more on the project’s back end. “Then, the way that spaces are organized brings it down to a scale that is more comfortable.
“You are sort of injected into this mechanism and because it has that skin and that feel of a stadium but still is open air there is always that buzz. You almost feel like you are one of the drivers.”
Interviewed for this article: Tony Reiner (313) 463-5151; Joie Chitwood III, (800) 748-7467