Located across the river from St. Louis, Missouri, World Wide Technology Raceway is the only venue on the planet that hosts NASCAR, IndyCar, and NHRA racing. Featuring an oval track spanning 1.25 miles with a road course tucked within, the raceway is also home to a high-speed go-cart track and a quarter mile drag strip used for both regional and national racing events. . To keep pace with the raceway’s needs, the venue operators required an updated speaker design powerful enough to overcome the roar of multiple racecar engines, screeching tires, and other sounds synonymous with modern racing. 

FACILITY SCOPE Racing complex featuring an oval track spanning 1.25 miles, road course, gokart track, and drag strip

OBJECTIVES The venue operators required an updated speaker design powerful enough to overcome the tremendous noise of modern racecar driving.

BIAMP SOLUTIONS Community™

OUTCOME Thanks to Randy Hildebrand’s design expertise, the raceway is now equipped with powerful loudspeakers designed to overcome of the most challenging audio environments, allowing color commentary and music to cut through the racing noise with unparalleled clarity.  

SOLUTION

The owners of the raceway partnered with Randy Hildebrand and the TG TECH department of Two Guys Music to design and install the necessary audio equipment within the venue. Hildebrand determined that Biamp’s Community loudspeakers would be more than up to the task. “The Community R Series were chosen mostly from my past experiences with them, Hildebrand said. “I have installed them for many years with little to no problems or failures. They cover the area great and fit into the price that was set by the venue owner.” To accommodate the oval track, 66 Community R.5/99TZ speakers were installed for the fans and four Community R1/94Z were placed in the infield for the racers. The drag strip required 36 Community R.5/99TZ speakers for fans and another 12 for races in the staging lanes. Four R1/94Z speakers were installed in the pit area for the racers, while the go-kart track required a total of 12 R.5/66TZ speakers. Between the venues, more than seven miles of speaker cable was pulled. Speakers were flown on poles 18 feet in the air along the front stretch of the oval and into the seating of turns one and two. The speakers on the drag strip were placed on the retaining wall on each side of the track covering the grandstands. The staging lanes are covered from the tower to the pit area with the R.5 boxes on poles 12 feet high. The speakers on the go-kart track are mounted on their light poles about 30 feet in the air, while the infield and pit R1 speakers are about 30 feet high on towers provided by the venue

CONCLUSION

The result was deemed highly satisfactory by the client and was put into immediate use for some high-profile events held at the raceway. The oval track hosted the 2021 NASCAR truck race, while the drag strip was used for the NHRA Midwest National race. “At both events, the owner and CEO Curtis Francois, the executive vice-president and general manager Chris Blair told us how great it sounded,” Hildebrand said. “At the NHRA race, I was even asked to turn it down. The sound system was too loud at a drag race! That is the best compliment that I could get.”