Big Renovations Visible at Daytona

A fan who takes a look around the new Daytona International Speedway grandstand project can see what $400 million looks like.

It looks like 31.6 million pounds of steel. Throw in more than 3,000 speakers and 1,400 television screens. What one can't see: 4,268 miles of fiber optic cable and 1,600 miles of data cable.

And that's not even why track president Joie Chitwood doesn't allow the use of the word "grandstand" anymore among his staff at the facility. They must now call his $400 million baby "the stadium." Even credentials that used to say "G" for grandstand access now have an "S" instead.

For Chitwood, the project -- dubbed "Daytona Rising" -- ranks as a stadium because it has massive concourses that stretch nearly a mile behind and underneath the grandstands along the track frontstretch. The seats -- all 101,500 new, 20 to 21 inches in width plus armrests and cupholders -- are more easily accessible through a series of escalators and ramps. The seats reach as high as 154 feet -- 24 feet higher than before and as high as the Federal Aviation Administration would allow with the airport virtually across the street from the track.

"These huge social zones [in the concourses], the opportunity to relax and enjoy and then go out into the seating area, before we didn't have that," Chitwood said. "We had a ground level and we had a grandstand. The facade itself has massive entrance statements, a huge marquee sign. We are a stadium."

Chitwood believes he can trace the reason so many fans stayed for the 11:30 p.m. running of the Sprint Cup race last July to fans congregating in the concourse areas and remaining dry. A year earlier, they would have had no choice but go to their cars or try to avoid the drops from underneath the stands.

He thinks the hand driers work well enough that he doesn't need to have paper-towel dispensers in the restrooms, the number of which has now doubled. How does he know? People used them to try to stay warm last February when part of the new grandstands opened.

"The fans were all here [in July] -- before, they would have ran for the hills," Chitwood said. "If you would have stood under the grandstands as it rained, you'd get as wet as if you were outside with no cover."

The project opens in full force this week, and fans most likely will be impressed. Ticket prices in some areas have increased, but paying for this project likely will come from the wallets of corporate sponsors.