Daytona Beach, FL – The $400 million renovation of Daytona International Speedway is officially finished.
A sizable crowd bent on ducking the raindrops gathered at the finish line area near the center injector at 3:30 PM Tuesday as DIS officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the end of the Daytona Rising project.
Among that crowd were numerous Volusia County officials and United States Congressman John Mica.
The ceremony comes just days before the newly renovated motorsports stadium runs its first-ever race, the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
To celebrate its completion, DIS teamed up with EarthCam to create a time-lapse video showing the entire construction – which took 28 months to do – in about 2 and a half minutes. That video is posted above this article. For more about EarthCam, click here.
Seating capacity at DIS dropped to 101,500 as part of the renovation, though most of that came when DIS decided to destroy the thousands of seats that made up the backstretch grandstands and make all the seats on the nearly mile-long frontstretch wider than the old ones.
What’s also wider is the concourse areas as well as 5 expanded and redesigned entrances known as “injectors” that will lead fans to escalators and elevators to the concourses and the 11 social “neighborhoods” along the nearly mile-long frontstretch. 4 of those 5 entrances have been sponsored by Sunoco, Toyota, Chevrolet and Florida Hospital.
DIS officials say there’s 2 times as many restrooms and 3 times as many concession stands compared to the old venue. That’s on top of over 60 luxury suites with trackside views and a completely revamped hospitality experience for corporate guests.
The project created an estimated 6,300 jobs, $300 million in labor income and over $85 million in tax revenue, according to DIS.
For photos of the ribbon-cutting, click here.
Copyright 2016 Southern Stone Communications.