Daytona International Speedway is a superspeedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is a tri-oval race track facility with a seating capacity of 168,000 spectators. It hosts races of motor vehicles of various kinds, including go-karts, motorcycles (on and off road), sports cars, modified pickup trucks, and stock cars. The facility also includes a road course and a infield, including the Lake Lloyd, which has hosted powerboat racing. The facility is also used for an annual spring car show and swap meet, and a Thanksgiving street rod meet, some of the largest of their kind, and various races around the track, as there have been three different layouts.

Course history

NASCAR was founded by William France Sr. and a small group of fellow race promoters at Daytona Beach, Florida in 1947. The original premiere event in the series was held at the Daytona Beach Road Course. France began planning a new track for the premiere event in his fledgling series in 1953. On August 16 1954 he signed a contract with city officials to create this new track that would become famous as the Daytona International Speedway. Ground was broken on November 25th, 1957. The soil underneath the banked corners was dug from the infield of the track, and the large hole in the infield filled with water from the low water table and is now known as Lake Lloyd. The speedway opened on February 22, 1959 to a crowd of 41,000 people.

The track was almost not complete for that first race date, however. In 1958, needing more money to meet his goal, France traveled to Atlanta to meet with the Coca-Cola company to hopefully get funding to complete construction. Coca-Cola officials told him he would never finish it on time and refused to fund it. France then went to the Pepsi-Cola company, then headquartered in North Carolina, and they cut him a check on the spot. Because of this Pepsi, and not Coca-Cola, would come to be sold at all NASCAR Tracks that the France family owned, until 2008, when Pepsico changed its focus to mainly sponsorship of Hendrick Motorsports. Coca-Cola has sided with most independent tracks, and rival Speedway Motorsports most notably, but there is an ISC transition with Coca-Cola that started with the 2008 Daytona 500 and continues with most ISC tracks, as Coca-Cola and NASCAR signed an official product deal starting in 1998, and was renewed until 2017. The new ten-year deal that started in 2008 will also phase in Coca-Cola pouring rights to most ISC tracks.

The Daytona 500, the most important race for NASCAR's premier series, is held annually at Daytona International Speedway. It is a 200-lap, 500 mile (805 km) stock car race. The list of Daytona 500 winners dates back to the inaugural race in 1959, and includes Richard Petty, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, and Dale Earnhardt.

NASCAR, the premier stock car organization in the United States, holds some of its most important races on this track. These include competitions in its Craftsman Truck Series (where pickup trucks are raced), Nationwide Series (the stock car junior league), and Sprint Cup Series. The 24 Hours of Daytona is also held at Daytona.