NASCAR Trivia: Who Designed Cup Series’ Newest Venue in Iowa?

NASCAR heads to Iowa Speedway this weekend for the 17th race of the 2024 Cup Series season. Making a return to the nationwide series of the sport, the 0.875-mile-long track will be hosting a Cup Series race for the first time this Sunday.

Touted as the fastest short track in the world, the newest venue on American stock car racing’s calendar was designed by former American stock car racing driver Rusty Wallace himself. The track features banking ranging from 10 degrees on the front stretch to a variation of 12-14 degrees in the turns.

Wallace officially became the first NASCAR driver to have designed a track himself when the 1989 Winston Cup champion undertook the task in 2004. Two years after Wallace put pen to paper and designed his ideal short track, Iowa Speedway opened its gates to race fans in 2006.

Iowa Speedway Tours
• Noon – 2 p.m. | Iowa Speedway, 3333 Rusty Wallace Drive

Learn about the Fastest Short Track on the Planet with a tour of the Iowa Speedway! pic.twitter.com/bo208Piuhj

— City of Newton, Iowa (@GettoKnowNewton) June 7, 2019

With the venue having hosted junior stock car racing series such as the Truck and Xfinity Series along with the country’s premier open-wheeled series in the form of IndyCar, it remains to be seen how the track takes to NASCAR’s Next-Gen car.

Several current drivers in the sport have either driven at or won nationwide series races at Iowa Speedway during their climb up to the highest echelon of the sport. All their experience is set to be put to the test this Sunday as a partial repave of the track coupled with the seventh-generation Cup car could prove overtaking a difficult task during the race.

A look back at when Rusty Wallace previewed NASCAR’s Next-Gen car’s performance at Iowa Speedway

The 1989 Winston Cup champion previewed how the seventh-generation Cup Series car is expected to run at a track designed by him, Rusty Wallace spoke about the characteristics of Iowa Speedway back when its appearance on the 2024 calendar was announced last year.

The former driver spoke about the tendency of racing at the venue and said, “This is kind of a track that’s 7/8ths of a mile in length. It races more like an intermediate track, not a short track but it’s going to be really fast.”

With the partial repave of the venue leaving opinions divided amongst the NASCAR fraternity, it remains to be seen how well the much-anticipated venue performs with the aerodynamic tendencies that the Next Gen car brings this weekend. The Iowa Corn 350 goes live this Sunday at 7:00 pm ET.