Rendering of the TMS video board courtesy TMS
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Texas Motor Speedway is planning to have the world’s largest highest-definition video board in place before the NASCAR Sprint Cup race there next spring.
TMS officials announced plans Monday night for the nearly half-acre display board dubbed “Big Hoss TV.” The screen will be 218 feet wide and about 95 feet high, and placed about 125 feet above ground in the middle of the backstretch at the 1½-mile track.
Construction of the 108-ton board will begin after the Sprint Cup race in November and is scheduled for completion in March.
The board will be larger than the 200-foot-wide, 80-foot-tall screen at Charlotte Motor Speedway, another Bruton Smith-owned track that currently has the biggest such screen. Both video boards are a partnership with Panasonic.
Also Monday night, TMS released its 2014 racing schedule. The Sprint Cup race will be on April 6, on a Sunday afternoon instead of its normal Saturday night slot for the spring so as to not conflict with the NCAA Final Four games going on at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium in nearby Arlington.
The other 2014 Sprint Cup race at Texas will be Nov. 2, the eighth of 10 Chase races.
The board at TMS will feature 20,634 square feet of HD display, about 79 percent larger than each of the twin video boards with 11,520 square feet of display hanging over the field at the Cowboys’ stadium.
About 373 Sprint Cup cars could fit within the borders of the upcoming TMS boards.
Smith said TMS president Eddie Gossage “always tells me everything is bigger in Texas, so I wanted to make this video board fit his motto.”
The track did not disclose the cost of the project.
NASCAR Nationwide races will be run April 4 and Nov. 1, on the same weekends as Cup races.
The IndyCar/NASCAR Truck Series doubleheader stayed in its traditional slot two weeks after the Indianapolis 500. The trucks will run June 6 and the IndyCar race on June 7 will be longer than last year, with an additional 32 miles to make it a 373-mile race — or 600 kilometers to match the race name.
The Camping World Truck Series will return to the track Oct. 31 as part of a NASCAR tripleheader weekend.
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Online:
http://www.texasmotorspeedway.com/at-track/speedway-facilities/big-hoss