Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Get to know Iowa Speedway

Brad Keselowski, Sam Hornish Jr

Brad Keselowski, Sam Hornish Jr

AP

Much attention will be on Charlotte Motor Speedway this weekend where the Sprint Cup and Champing World Truck Series will race, but let’s not forget about what else is going on in the NASCAR world, as the Xfinity Series heads to Iowa Speedway for Sunday’s 3M 250.

It will be the 11th time the series has raced at the track in Newton, Iowa, a town with a population of 15,136 located 30 miles from Des Moines and home to internationally famous Maytag Blue Cheese.

Iowa Speedway is off the beaten path from the Sprint Cup series, as it only hosts Xfinity and CWTS events.

Here’s a guide to getting know Iowa Speedway.

Rusty Wallace – The 1989 Sprint Cup champion was the lead designer of the track and was a co-owner before NASCAR bought the facility in November 2013. The track is located at 3333 Rusty Wallace Drive.

$50 million – The cost to build the speedway.

0.875-mile – The length of the oval track, which is paved with asphalt.

30,000 – The number of the speedway’s permanent grandstand seats.

2006 – The year the track opened, holding its first event on Sept. 15, as Woody Howard won the Hooters Pro Cup Series’ Soy Biodiesel 250.

2 - The number of Xfinity races at Iowa in the 2015 season.

Brad Keselowski – The 2012 Sprint Cup champion was the first winner of a NASCAR national series race at Iowa, winning the U.S. Cellular 250 on Aug. 1, 2009. Keselowski was a year away from his first full Sprint Cup season and was driving the No. 88 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr.

3 – How many times Brad Keselowski has won at Iowa Speedway.

.066 seconds: The closest finish at Iowa in an Xfinity race came in the 2011 U.S. Cellular 250. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. blew a tire coming to the finish and was rammed from behind by Roush Fenway Racing teammate Carl Edwards as he took the checkered flag.

Mike Skinner – The winner of the first CWTS race at Iowa Speedway, the Lucas Oil 200 on Sept. 9, 2009. It was the next to last of Skinner’s 28 career CWTS wins.

6 – Number of winners at the track in both Xfinity and CWTS (through eight races).

Brett Moffitt – The driver of Front Row Motorsports’ No. 34 Sprint Cup car was the first Iowa native to win at the track. Raised in Grimes, Moffitt won a K&N Pro Series East race in 2011.

Track records: Xfinity: Qualifying, Austin Dillon, 136.737 mph (23.037 sec.) on June 8, 2013.
Race: Elliott Sadler, 115.622 mph (1:53:31) on Aug. 4, 2012.

CWTS: Qualifying, German Quiroga, Jr., 138.620 mph (22.724 sec.) on
July 13, 2013
Race: Erik Jones, 110.429 mph (1:35:05) on July 11, 2014

Follow @DanielMcFadin