Fittingly on schedule, contractors are finishing up the $400-million reconstruction of Daytona International Speedway in time for this year’s Daytona 500, which kicks off the 2016 NASCAR season on Feb. 21. Michigan-based contractor Barton Malow Co. and Detroit-based designer Rossetti led the phased, design-build renovation effort—dubbed Daytona Rising—for project owner International Speedway Corp.
The 55-year-old racetrack’s transformation takes it from being a series of grandstands and creates the “world’s first motorsports stadium,” as architect Rossetti is now touting. The revamped facility’s design features are certainly more reminiscent of other modern-day baseball, basketball or football stadiums. Three concourses replace the former facility’s old-school grandstand-style seating, with elevators and more than 40 escalators helping deliver fans to their seats.
As ENR correspondent Tim Newcomb reported in 2014, design-builders deployed a significant level of technology in building the project, which required extensive phasing to accommodate the massive events that regularly take place at the site throughout the year. As many as 165,000 people attend the largest NASCAR events that take place at DIS throughout the year, for example.
From Newcomb's report:
"We have more sheets of drawing and specs than people in the seats on race day,” says Jason McFadden, the contractor’s director of project management. “It was imperative to figure out a way to get everyone linked."
Len Moser, project director, says the job’s No. 1 challenge is timing. The No. 2 challenge includes the complete removal and rebuild of the main grandstand tower within a tight timeframe. So, in reality, that is all about timing, too.
"The schedule is the driver on the site,” Moser says. “The labor is available, but if material is not here, we are dead in the water.”
Now, with the first Daytona 500 for the completely revamped "motorsports stadium" just days away, here’s a quick look at the new facility, via a time-lapse video courtesy of Earthcam.
