Other than the lines needing to be painted, the repave of Texas Motor Speedway’s racing surface has been completed.
The track officially unveiled the finished product on Monday, less than a month before its first usage by NASCAR.
One of those present for the reveal was NASCAR Cup driver and Texas native Chris Buescher.
In addition to the repave, the project lowered the banking in Turns 1-2 from 24 to 20 degrees and the racing surface width was expanded from 60 to 80 feet in those turns. Turns 3 and 4 were just repaved.
A drainage system was also installed to help prevent long rain delays or postponements that plagued both NASCAR weekends and the IndyCar weekend last year.
In the above video you can watch Buescher drive around the track and give his commentary on the how the project turned out. Buescher and the rest of his NASCAR competitors will return to Fort Worth, Texas, for the April 9 O’Reilly Auto Parts 500.
“The track was soaked this morning when we got here and was dry within the hour without any assistance,” Buescher said in a press conference. “We ran maybe 10 laps with a pace car. That’s all we really did to help. ... Turns 1 and 2 over there, it’s interesting how wide it is now. It’s pretty amazing, when you get on the front stretch, which is it’s always been without white lines now. Looking at the corner coming up, it’s extremely wide, we’ve got a lot of options. ... The bottom groove is so far down the track, you feel like that track is going to be quite a bit slower.”
After the first NASCAR race weekend, the Verizon IndyCar Series and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will return to race on the track during the weekend of June 10.
.@Chris_Buescher, @edcarpenter20 & @eddiegossage make the ceremonial first lap on the new surface! pic.twitter.com/qLaGMcSaLA
— Texas Motor Speedway (@TXMotorSpeedway) March 13, 2017