Walt Disney World Speedway, Motorsport racing track in Bay Lake, US.
Walt Disney World Speedway was a one-mile (1.6 km) tri-oval race track on a triangular plot beside the Magic Kingdom parking lot in Bay Lake, Florida. It was designed by Indianapolis Motor Speedway chief engineer Kevin Forbes, with a track surface of 5,200 tons of asphalt, 1,800 yards of concrete outside walls and ten miles of safety restraint cabling. The site was demolished in 2015.
Plans for the track were announced on January 23, 1995, and Mari Hulman George of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway broke ground that June, presenting a paving brick from the Brickyard. The one-mile tri-oval, designed by engineer Kevin Forbes, was dedicated on November 28, 1995. It hosted the Indy Racing League's inaugural Indy 200 in January 1996 and NASCAR Truck Series races in 1997 and 1998; the IRL left after 2000, and the track closed permanently on August 9, 2015.
AutoWeek and the Orlando Sentinel nicknamed the track "The Mickyard", combining Mickey Mouse with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's "Brickyard". At the 1995 groundbreaking, Mari Hulman George presented one of the original Brickyard paving bricks. The site is now a lake and expanded Magic Kingdom parking, so no track remains to visit.
The track no longer exists: it closed on August 9, 2015, and was demolished that year, so there is nothing to visit. The site, next to the Magic Kingdom parking lot, was reworked into expanded parking and a large lake. Look for the water where the tri-oval once ran.
The three linked ponds in the infield, called "Lake Mickey", were added a year after the track opened to solve drainage problems, and their outline traces the shape of Mickey Mouse. The track itself was a three-turn tri-oval designed by Indianapolis Motor Speedway chief engineer Kevin Forbes.
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