NEWTON — Rusty Wallace knows the midway outside Iowa Speedway better than most fans and drivers here this weekend.
Wallace began designing the track a year before his final Cup Series season in 2005, back when this was just a cornfield near Interstate 80, and when Newton still tied its identity to appliances and Maytag.
Wallace won 55 races and the 1989 Cup Series Championship and was inducted to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2013. Over the last 18 years, the seven-eighths-mile D-shaped oval has become one of the most beloved race tracks in the country.
On Saturday afternoon Corey LaJoie, driver of the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, interviewed Wallace for his podcast “Stacking Pennies” in front of hundreds of fans.
“Somebody has an idea about building a racetrack in the middle of a cornfield,” Corey LaJoie said. “How’d that go?”
“Well, what happened in 2004 was I got a call out of the clear blue from a group of investors … ” the story goes.
Wallace has 34 short-track victories, more than any other driver in NASCAR history. For a brand new race track in Iowa, he wanted to bring a slice Virginia, but make it better.
“I always did really well at Richmond. It was one of my favorite tracks, and Bristol. I like Richmond’s layout, but I never really did like the way you get into turn 1 at Richmond,” Wallace told The Des Moines Register before talking to LaJoie.
Improving Richmond Raceway
For new race fans, Wallace calls races for the NASCAR-owned Motor Racing Network. The smooth tenor in his voice sounds calming over track sound systems and hooks first-time fans.
Coming on board to heIlp Wallace with Iowa the track design was architect Paxton Waters, who designed on California Speedway, Irwindale Speedway and the most recent pagoda at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The track was going to be three-quarters of a mile, like Richmond. At the time most new tracks had infield road courses built into them. To accommodate the road course the track had to grow to its distinctive seven-eighths of a mile.
Wallace planned to design Iowa Speedway with banking of 12 degrees down low and 14 degrees higher in turns, he said. IndyCar called and asked him to design the track with banking that progresses from 12 to 13 to 14 degrees in the turns because the series worried that the underbelly on IndyCars would hit the banking, Wallace said.
The result was a track with a length not quite a mile, with 10 degrees of banking on the front stretch and 2 degrees of banking on the backstretch.
Built for a Cup Series race
Fans long held the assumption that Iowa Speedway would never hold a Cup Series race because of its low grandstand capacity — about 24,000 for this weekend. Including camping, temporary suites and other seating capacity will be about 45,000 fans each day said Matt Humphrey, NASCAR senior director of track communications.
Wallace built the track in a natural bowl among rolling hills that defined the property. He designed the track to hold a Cup Series race but hid the infrastructure, he said. Supports for new grandstands were buried in hills behind turns one and four.
“We put all the pillars in the ground on each end to bring extra grandstands,” Wallace said. “So it’s hidden, but it’s there.”
The design of the track aged well. Since it opened, Iowa Speedway has become known as “The Fastest Short Track on the Planet,” owing to the high speeds allowed by Wallace’s design.
“This is a real bitchin design,” Wallace joked. “It’s a real intimate atmosphere. You can sit right in those grandstands and see everything. You can see all the action right up front.”
From washing power to horsepower
Newton is a working class community in Jasper County. Until recently its high school played baseball at a raggedy baseball field in a town park. Frederick Maytag founded the Maytag appliance brand in Newton in 1893.
Like many rust belt communities Newton formed its identity around its largest employer and manufacturer, in this case Maytag.
The factory and headquarters shut down after Whirlpool acquired Maytag in 2007, leaving 1,800 people unemployed. Plans for the speedway were in the works well before the closure, but the track opened in 2006 and slowly became a new source of pride for the town’s residents.
Iowa has a hardcore base of race fans with numerous dirt tracks and nearby Knoxville Raceway, Wallace said. But money has always been the track’s Achilles heel. The Manatt Family, owners of a construction company in nearby Brooklyn, built the track for $70 million and owned it for its first five years in business.
In 2011, the Clement family bought it. In 2013, NASCAR bought the track from the Clement family for $10 million. From 2009 to 2019, Iowa Speedway hosted 20 Xfinity Series and 13 Truck Series races. Between 2007 and 2020, Iowa Speedway has hosted 15 IndyCar races.
Then the track fell mostly silent. In 2021, Iowa Speedway was all but dormant as it fell off the IndyCar and NASCAR schedules. NASCAR laid off all of the track’s staff. Motorsports reporters speculated the track was a financial mess.
An ARCA Menards Series race was the lone event at the track in 2021, something that had to happen to get its local tax breaks, Wallace said. Iowa Speedway was all but dead, a hole left in a cow pasture primed for redevelopment like other recently redeveloped tracks.
Roger Penske, who bought IndyCar in 2019, praised the track in 2020, as he considered buying it, telling Racer.com, “It’s a great track for our cars.”
In June 2021, instead of hosting NASCAR crash-test investigators used the infield road course — the one that created the track’s unique length — to crash test farm vehicles and passenger cars.
“At Iowa we rented the track from France family, just a lease, and from an economic standpoint it was not a successful situation, but we had to do it (because the COVID-19 pandemic canceled so many races),” Penske told Racer.com in October 2020.
Wallace followed the news at the time with dread.
“It was a terrible feeling,” Wallace said. “There was a time when this track might not have still existed. It got to a point where it was maybe not going to happen.”
The ‘Infield of Dreams’
Iowans are obsessed with 1989 Kevin Costner classic the movie “Field of Dreams,” which romanticizes baseball and Iowa country life. Since Iowa Speedway opened, a sign at the entrance to the infield, greets guests by welcoming them to “The Infield of Dreams.”
NASCAR executives like Vice Chairman Mike Helton realized that NASCAR owned a gem and threw support behind saving the track, Wallace said. Standalone ARCA weekends in 2021 and 2022 drew few fans but kept the doors open.
West Des Moines-based Hy-Vee agreed in 2022 to promote and sponsor an IndyCar doubleheader to revive the track. During IndyCar weekends in 2022 and 2023 A-List acts including Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton and Florida Georgia Line have performed at the track.
“It’s about doing something great for the state of Iowa,” Hy-Vee Executive Vice President Anna Stoermer said of the investment in IndyCar and the track. “It’s about that rural community and being able to make it more vibrant by supporting this race out in Newton.”
The weekend was so well received after its first edition in 2022 that many IndyCar insiders thought it was the second-best weekend on the schedule, behind only the Indianapolis 500.
After California Speedway closed for renovations last year, NASCAR had an open date in its schedule. Wallace was in Mexico in October when NASCAR awarded Iowa a Cup Series date. Wallace flew from Mexico to Charlotte and then traveled to Des Moines with NASCAR officials for the announcement.
“The governor was there. She loved it,” Wallace said. “She was jacked up. I just hope we have great weather and the first race kicks off good, and it looks like it’s going to.”
What is the future of NASCAR in Newton?
Iowa Speedway is far from spotless. Iowa’s cold winters and spring thaws are hard on pavement inside and outside the track, just like drivers like it.
The midway has 18-years of cracks in it. A partial repave in the corners has thrown race teams for a loop this weekend. During Saturday’s Xfinity Series race teams struggled with numerous front-tire blowouts as they struggled to adjust to a track made up of about half new asphalt and half 18-year old concrete.
Riley Herbst, who finished second Saturday, said that despite the age of the original pavement, he hopes NASCAR keeps pavers off remaining portions of the original pavement.
“I hope they don’t touch it again” Herbst said on pit road after Saturday’s race.
It’s still the newest oval race track built in America. Iowa Speedway’s place on the Cup Series schedule is far from certain.
Saturday and Sunday tickets sold out months ago. Tickets to Friday’s ARCA Menards Series race almost sold out, and the grandstand was half-full. Joey Logano and his Team Penske Teammate Ryan Blaney said that the drivers feel the energy around the race, and it should remain on the schedule.
“If the fans show up we should be there,” Logano said. “If the fans don’t show up we should probably go to a different race track. Usually the fans will show up if it’s a good race, if it’s a good experience for them all the way through.”
The future of IndyCar at Iowa is also far from certain. Hy-Vee and IndyCar were believed to be in the last year of a three-year contract for the grocer to sponsor and promote the race, but the contract also contained options. IndyCar released its 2025 schedule this week with Iowa scheduled for July 12-13, 2025.
Hy-Vee is heavily committed to IndyCar, Dawn Buzynski, Hy-Vee assistant vice president of communications, said this week. But she declined to comment on the future of the Iowa sponsorship.
Above the grandstand closest to turn one section signs read “Rusty Wallace 208,” “Rusty Wallace “207,” “Rusty Wallace 206,” “Rusty Wallace 205,” “Rusty Wallace 204,” “Rusty Wallace 203,” Rusty Wallace 202.” They’re small nods to the legendary driver who designed the track. As Wallace stepped on stage to meet LaJoie, he soaked in the moment.
Strong attendance this weekend made a huge statement to NASCAR, Wallace said. NASCAR Chairman and CEO Jim France was scheduled to be in France at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but instead came to Iowa, Wallace said.
“I think it’s a big statement,” Wallace said. “NASCAR loves this race track.”
Philip Joens covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Rusty Wallace reflects on designing Iowa Speedway.
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