NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing Arrives at Kentucky Speedway

It has been 11 long years since the construction at Kentucky Speedway finished and finally, NASCAR Sprint Cup Cars will light up the night this July for the inaugural Quaker State 400. The state of the art track and facilities has tested the waters over the years with action from the Izod Indy Car Series, Camping World Series Trucks, and Nationwide Series cars among others.

A lawsuit from former track owner Jerry Carroll failed to bring a NASCAR Sprint Cup to the facility, but just a year after Speedway Motor Sports, owned by racing mogul Bruton Smith, purchased the speedway, NASCAR announced a triple header weekend that would debut the Sprint Cup Series.

Kentucky Speedway is a mile and a half tri oval that features private club seating, terrace boxes, campgrounds with spaces for 2000 RV's, and seating for over 106,000 in the grandstands. Past winners at the track include Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Joey Logano, and Todd Bodine, in the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series, as well as Helio Castroneves in the Indy Series.

This July the speedway which is located about halfway between Cincinnati, Ohio and Louisville, Kentucky will host a triple header weekend that features all three of NASCAR's top series. To add to the action, all three series will run under the lights for three action-packed night races.

Fans can get up close for the action with Fan Zone's for all three series that delivers access to the infield and areas around Victory Lane and Pit Road. For the inaugural Sprint Cup Series race Kentucky Speedway track promoters announced the new Pre Race Fan Zone Pass that will give fans closer access to the driver introductions for the Sprint Cup Quaker State 400 and the pre-race concert.

The Camping World Truck Series will take to the track for practice at 9 a.m. on July 7th and will race at 8 p.m. that same date. The trucks will run 150 laps. The weekend of excitement will continue on Friday with the Nationwide Series racing at 7:30 p.m. on July 8th for the Kentucky 300, and the long wait for Sprint Cup fans comes to a head with the inaugural Quaker State 400 set run at 7:30 p.m. Saturday night, July 9th.

For the fans that are unable to get to the track in July, the Camping World Truck Series race will be covered live on SPEED at 7:30 p.m. The Nationwide Series race will air live on ESPN at 7 p.m., and the Sprint Cup race will air live on the TNT Cable network beginning at 6:30 p.m.

While the July weekend is the only weekend of racing for the Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series at Kentucky Speedway for 2011, the Camping World Truck Series will return to the track one more time in October of 2011 for the UNOH 225.