Inside the Abandoned Kentucky Speedway: a Race Car Still Sitting in the Garage

Kentucky Speedway used to sell out. Today the gates are locked, the paint is peeling off every bench in the grandstands, and there’s a race car sitting in one of the team garages like someone meant to come back for it. This explore ran long, with 2swag Productions, Urbex Ashton and Ben from Places Forgotten, and it’s one of my favorite explores so far.

What we found

The entry was through a tunnel on the backside of the property, past a trail cam, into the medical area. The first thing in it is a full track ambulance, “Track Services” still on the door, radio and monitor inside, no keys. Next door is a fire truck with the ladder, the CB radio, the nozzle controls, and a box of earplugs on the dash.

The garage row is where it turned into a different kind of explore. Most doors were locked. One wasn’t. Behind it was a #101 car from Garcia Auto Sales, half repaired, like someone meant to finish it. A few doors down, behind another fence, was the one that made the video. It’s a #6 stock car with Performance Plus Motor Oil on the hood, Goodyear tires, the window net still hanging, and fake headlights that are just stickers because the cars never needed real ones.

Between the garages is the drivers’ gym, and it’s complete. Treadmills, squat rack, climbing rope, rings, a Quaker State 400 poster from July 9, 2011. The free weights are gone, but everything else is there, including the liability waiver posted by the door.

Up in the grandstands the scale hits you. Section A, seat 1, and then thousands more, with overgrowth coming through the concrete and the roll cage of cables along the wall that used to catch debris. The suites above it still have flat screens and dusty tables, and one was the Crosley Club, the radio station’s suite. The concessions along the concourse still list hamburgers, nachos, pork tenderloin sandwiches, fried bologna and a foot long corn dog.

Two things I didn’t expect. The track still runs its air conditioning and more security cameras than I’ve seen at any single location, at least 20 across the property. And the pedestrian tunnel under the track, with escalators still in place, is lit and sits at what feels like 50 degrees no matter what it’s doing outside.

Why Kentucky Speedway is abandoned

The track opened in 2000 on more than 1,000 acres in Sparta, Gallatin County, on Interstate 71 between Louisville and Cincinnati. NASCAR’s Cup Series raced here from 2011 through 2020, and the Quaker State 400 was the headline weekend every summer.

Racing ended after the 2020 season. The reasons reported locally are the ones you’d guess. Attendance had been falling for years, costs were rising, NASCAR was reshuffling its schedule, and 2020 was the pandemic year. The track also had only one major access route, and traffic around race weekends was a known problem.

Since then the property has mostly sat still. In 2022, Ford started parking thousands of unfinished F-150 trucks on the track’s lots while it waited on parts during the chip shortage. The speedway is under two hours from Ford’s Louisville plant, and the track’s owner at the time was reported as Speedway Motorsports. By January 2026, local reporting described the gates locked, the lights off, and no major race in almost six years. The owners didn’t respond when Spectrum News asked about the future.

In August 2025, the Gallatin County sheriff charged dozens of people with trespassing and burglary after their social media videos from the track drew attention, and he pushed back on calling it abandoned at all. Parts of the property are rented to businesses, and driving schools still use the track.

What happens next

Nobody knows. The county’s planning director has said deterioration and cost make a return to major racing unlikely, that there are no confirmed buyers or proposals, and that talk of a data center or large scale redevelopment is unconfirmed. Any change would need rezoning and public meetings. The county’s bigger concern is money. The speedway backs bonds tied to county finances that are expected to run out around 2031.

Until then it stays like this. It’s a racetrack with the lights on in the tunnel and a race car waiting in the garage.