Iowa Speedway - Fertile Ground

"They were literally drawing on the backs of napkins," says Armstrong. "They kept debating some fine point of the track's design, drawing lines and curves and passing napkins back and forth. They were so focused; it was like the rest of us weren't even there.

"Suddenly, both of them just got up and left the table. We were all sitting there wondering exactly what's going on."

"Rusty just wanted to be sure we got it right," Vertrees explains. "He had very definite ideas, so we drove over the track so he could be sure. It only took us an hour. It wasn't any big deal."

Not unless you were sitting at the table waiting to order dinner.

Apparently, the track was worth the wait.

Last May, Armstrong stood before 41 ASA Late Model drivers and warned them: "This may be the fastest short track in the world, so be prepared."

The ASA cars lapped in the 130-mph range. Drivers in the NASCAR Elite Division were about 10 mph faster. The first time the USAC Sprint Cars toured the oval, they set a record speed of 146 and change.

Tony Kanaan toured the place at more than 185 mph in an open wheel Indy Car and pronounced it one of the best ovals in the world.

Even its construction was fast.

"Fifteen months from groundbreaking to green flag," brags Armstrong. "I don't think you could do that anywhere else but here."

He says with the help of Manatt, the entire facility went up for about $70 million.

"That sounds like a lot of money, and it is," he says. "But it is about half of what it would cost to build almost anywhere else. It allowed us to do things we couldn't otherwise afford and come up with a track far better than almost everyone expected."

The facility was designed to be state of the art, with an eye to the future.

The corners have progressive banking, which encourages three-wide racing around the entire oval.

"The short way around is on the bottom, where the banking is 12 degrees," Armstrong says. "But the fast way is up on top, where it is 14 degrees."

When the NASCAR Elite Division made its debut at the track in May, Nextel Cup star Kevin Harvick and teen standout Joey Logano thrilled fans with side-by-side racing for nearly 100 laps. They exchanged the lead 15 times until Logano took the checkered flag barely a second ahead of the Daytona 500 winner.

"The track is incredible," says Mike Gallegos, among the drivers in the Elite Division showdown. "It reminds me a lot of Pikes Peak Raceway. It is really fast and very smooth. You can carry a lot of speed around the entire track. From a driver standpoint, it is very friendly."

It's also very safe.

Vertrees, who also built Kentucky Speedway, says the Iowa oval took advantage of leading-edge technology.

It is the first one designed for the SAFER soft-wall barriers.

"It isn't just SAFER barriers stacked inside a concrete wall," he says. "The walls were designed from scratch around the barriers."

Vertrees also says the track is the first to have television lenses buried in the pavement.

"We can get some incredible shots of the cars from track level," he says. "And it may begin a new trend: advertising on the bottom of race cars."

Unlike most other short tracks, Iowa also has 50 permanent garages and plenty of parking space for team haulers, along with 26 luxury suites, 105 RV spaces along the backstretch, each with a view of the entire track, plus the assortment of business, medical, tire, and media buildings that are common to tracks on the Nextel Cup schedule.

"We have no dreams of a Nextel Cup date," Armstrong says. "The calendar is full. We could certainly accommodate a Cup race, but I don't see that in the future."

He does anticipate Cup teams using the track for testing and development.

Newton is less than two hours away from Charlotte by air, and the track sits next to an executive-jet grade airport.

"A driver can fly to a test session after breakfast and be home by dinner," says Armstrong. "Rusty made the trip all the time during construction."

Armstrong says he'd like to see the track host a NASCAR Craftsman Truck or Busch Series race.