The crown jewel of Bruton Smith’s speedway empire since 1976, Charlotte is also the centre of the NASCAR racing industry. It is a superb high-banked 24 degree superspeedway, which hosts the World 600 (now sponsored by Coca-Cola) on the same weekend as the Indianapolis 500. The crowd for that race is the third largest single-day sporting attendance in America. Facilities have been continually updated (including new floodlights to allow night racing), making Charlotte arguably the finest circuit of its type in the world. The Indy Racing League visited until the 1999 race was abandoned after three spectators were killed by debris from an accident. Although the track was renamed Lowe’s in deference to a new sponsor, it is still universally known as Charlotte.
