Texas Motor Speedway

The first track to hold major series racing in Texas was the Texas International Speedway — later renamed Texas World Speedway — which opened in 1969 and staged its first NASCAR race in December of that year. Built along similar lines to the Michigan International Speedway but with higher banking for greater speeds, it faced a series of crises: the 1973 oil crisis halted major racing for nearly three years, and although NASCAR returned in 1979, the track's ageing infrastructure and poor surface led NASCAR president Bill France Jr. to withdraw the series in 1981. USAC also departed during the 1980s, following the body's split from Championship Auto Racing Teams in 1979. Texas was left without a major-series venue for more than a decade.

In the early 1990s, Bruton Smith's rising Speedway Motorsports operation sought a major racetrack west of the Mississippi River. Smith recruited Eddie Gossage, then Vice President of Public Relations at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, to find a suitable location. Three markets were evaluated: Las Vegas, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and St. Louis. Las Vegas was abandoned after it emerged that local businessman Ralph Engelstad was already scouting the same land — the site that would become the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. St. Louis was ruled out after the duo found large portions of available land to be flood-prone.

In Dallas–Fort Worth, Smith and Gossage met businessman Ross Perot Jr. and flew in his helicopter to inspect land he owned. By November 30, 1994, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that plans were in place for a 150,000-capacity speedway costing approximately $75 million. Capacity grew iteratively during the planning stages, eventually reaching 155,000 seats. Groundbreaking took place on April 11, 1995. Gossage was later invited to run the facility, which he accepted.

The track was designed with a dual-banking system — a high bank of 24 degrees for stock cars and a low bank of 8 degrees for open-wheel cars — with a temporary wall planned for each IndyCar event to reduce speeds. Open-wheel personalities including Cary Agajanian and Jimmy Vasser publicly questioned the feasibility of the arrangement. By June 1996 the temporary wall had been abandoned in favour of a painted line marking the banking transition. The track opened to the public for the first time on August 3, 1996, with a charity open-house event.

A naming dispute intervened: in August 1996 a quarter-mile dirt track in Alvin, Texas, sued Smith's speedway over the name "Texas Motor Speedway." The speedway changed its name to "Texas International Raceway" on September 11, 1996. The dispute was settled out of court on December 2, 1996; the dirt track changed its name and TMS retained its original title.

TMS's first race, the 1997 Interstate Batteries 500, was beset by heavy rain that cancelled qualifying and left grass parking lots heavily saturated. Driver complaints about the track surface contributed to a major first-lap pileup. Two months later, TMS held its first IndyCar Series race, which produced a scoring dispute between Billy Boat — whose team owner was A.J. Foyt — and Arie Luyendyk. Luyendyk disputed the victory initially awarded to Boat; Foyt physically confronted Luyendyk before security intervened. Luyendyk was awarded the victory after a scoring recheck the following day.

After both 1997 races, Gossage announced plans to reprofile the fourth turn. Complaints about a new bump and water leakage continued into 1998. Gossage subsequently ordered a complete repave, removing the dual-banking system entirely.

In 1999, during a final practice session for the Mall.com 500, 11 people were injured when Niclas Jönsson lost control on pit road, crashing into the stationary car of Tyce Carlson while Carlson's crew was working on it. In 2000, during a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, driver Tony Roper died after crashing on the frontstretch and suffering a fatal basilar skull fracture — the track's first fatality, which renewed debate about driver safety within NASCAR.

In 2001, a planned CART race was cancelled after analysis showed that drivers could suffer extreme vertical g-loads in the turns that could have been fatal. TMS subsequently sued CART for breach of contract, eventually settling for approximately $5–7 million. The track was also repaved that year to eliminate surface bumps, with Gossage noting the surface needed repaving every few years.

By the early 2000s, the worst operational difficulties had subsided. Attendance figures for the 1999 and 2000 NASCAR races reached 221,861 and 223,000 respectively, among the largest in the history of NASCAR. In 2002, SMI minority shareholder Francis Ferko filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR and the International Speedway Corporation; the 2004 settlement guaranteed TMS a second NASCAR race weekend, at the cost of one of Rockingham Speedway's weekends. The second race was enforced from 2005.

Gossage ran TMS as what he described as one of the last "old-school" promoters, drawing inspiration from figures such as Humpy Wheeler, under whom he had previously worked at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Notable promotions included training monkeys to sell souvenir programmes, a victory-lane tradition of race winners firing blank six-shooters, hiring an all-female pit crew, hosting a segment of British television programme Top Gear with presenter Richard Hammond, and a 2010 campaign dubbed "No Limits" aimed at a younger demographic.

The Lone Star Tower — a 10-story building overlooking the second turn — broke ground in 1996 and was completed in early 1998 at a cost of approximately $25 million. The first four floors provide office space; the upper floors contain condominiums. A members-only Speedway Club overlooking the first turn, inspired by the equivalent at Charlotte Motor Speedway, was completed in March 1999 at a cost of $35 million.

In May 1998, the speedway opened Lil' Texas Motor Speedway, a 1/5-mile paved short track primarily used for legends cars and bandoleros. In August 1999, Gossage announced a 2/5-mile dirt track to the east of the main oval, built for $8 million from black gumbo soil; it held its first races in March 2000.

In August 2000, the infield road course was completed. In 2000, the American Le Mans Series ran the Grand Prix of Texas on a roval combining the oval and the new infield course; the event repeated in 2001.

In 2013, Gossage announced construction of Big Hoss TV — billed as the largest HD screen in the world at the time of its unveiling. Approximately 10,000 backstretch grandstand seats were demolished to accommodate it. The screen was completed in March 2014 and certified by Guinness World Records as the largest HD television LED screen in the world. In 2023, TMS announced a 10% expansion of the screen.

In 2015, TMS held the seventh round of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship over the weekend of September 26–27, and again hosted the series in 2018 as the season finale.

By mid-2016, complaints mounted about the track surface taking too long to dry after rain. A seven-hour rain delay at the 2016 AAA Texas 500 drew significant criticism. Despite Gossage's initial opposition to a near-term repave — a position backed publicly by drivers Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards — SMI CEO Marcus Smith directed a repave. Banking in the first two turns was reduced from 24 to 20 degrees, and the racing surface width was expanded from 60 to 80 feet. The repave was viewed neutrally by IndyCar drivers and more optimistically by NASCAR drivers in a 2017 Dallas Morning News article.

Through the late 2010s, TMS faced continuous criticism for a poor racing product. In 2020, Marcus Smith moved the NASCAR All-Star Race from its traditional home at Charlotte Motor Speedway to Texas, a decision that attracted ongoing criticism.

By 2020, Gossage was in discussions with Marcus about retirement, citing dissatisfaction with the IndyCar product on the reconfigured track and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He officially announced his retirement on May 13, 2021, effective after the 2021 NASCAR All-Star Race on June 13.

After Gossage's departure, TMS announced a reduction in capacity to 75,000 and a renovation of suites. On August 4, 2021, Marcus Smith announced that TMS executive Rob Ramage would succeed Gossage as general manager. In August 2022, Ramage was removed after one year and promoted to SMI's vice president of government relations. He was replaced by Mark Faber, a former senior vice president at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Faber pledged improved relations with the city of Fort Worth and launched the "No Limits Next" renovation project, which included an expansion of Big Hoss TV. The tradition of race winners firing six-shooters in victory lane was discontinued under Faber. By July 2023, Faber confirmed that TMS and Marcus Smith were exploring a further repave informed by iRacing simulations.

TMS holds one annual NASCAR weekend, with its Cup Series race run as the Würth 400. Support races include the Andy's Frozen Custard 340 (NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series) and the SpeedyCash.com 250 (NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series). The 2021 and 2022 NASCAR All-Star Races were held at TMS before the event moved to North Wilkesboro Speedway.

TMS held IndyCar Series races from 1997 to 2023. The series did not return in 2024 due to an NBC scheduling conflict with the 2024 Summer Olympics. The 2001 CART race was cancelled on safety grounds; TMS sued CART for breach of contract, settling for approximately $5–7 million.

Since 1998, the track has hosted the Solar Car Challenge for high school students. The 2017, 2018, and 2019 seasons included a Stadium Super Trucks event as a support race. In 2022, TMS hosted the Indy Autonomous Challenge. In 2024, the track hosted the second round of the SuperMotocross World Championship.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.