A major transformation is underway in North Texas as city streets in Arlington\u2019s entertainment district are turned into a race track capable of speeds up to 180 mph.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re so excited. This has been two plus years in the making,\u201d said Bill Miller, president of the inaugural Java House Grand Prix of Arlington.<\/p>\n
The race is a large undertaking designed to bring IndyCar back to North Texas.<\/p>\n
Road closures around the 36-acre venue began Monday as crews continued building the temporary circuit, which features a 2.73-mile track with 14 turns. Construction on the track and surrounding structures has been underway for months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe track itself takes about 29 days to build. Our grandstands and suite structures we started in January, and it\u2019s close. We\u2019re on schedule and going to be ready to open our gates for the first time to everybody on Friday,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
Arlington police say the event will bring a different kind of setup than other large gatherings in the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve hosted a lot of big things in our city. We\u2019ve never hosted anything that looks quite like this,\u201d said Arlington police spokesperson Tim Ciesco.<\/p>\n
The city is urging fans and anyone planning to be in the area to prepare for detours and traffic changes.<\/p>\n
Closures will affect North Collins Street, Randol Mill Road, AT&T Way, Cowboys Way, Stadium Drive\/Ballpark Way and Nolan Ryan Expressway.<\/p>\n
Beginning at 3 a.m. Wednesday, March 11, North Collins Street near Randol Mill Road will close for track construction, with one southbound lane remaining open.<\/p>\n
The entire race course is expected to be closed by Friday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these streets, like I mentioned, that folks are used to driving across to get to parking lots to try to get closer to event venues aren\u2019t going to be accessible,\u201d Ciesco said.<\/p>\n
He encouraged visitors to use the event\u2019s maps and mobile app to plan parking and entry points.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those folks that are going to be parking south of the stadium and parking there, I recommend instead of taking 30 and some of the other roads you\u2019re used to taking to get in, go to 360 and enter those roads off Division,\u201d Ciesco said. \u201cLikewise, if you\u2019re going to the parking lots to the north and east of the stadium, that\u2019s where you\u2019re going to want to probably use the road to Six Flags as opposed to going all the way to Randall Mills Road and trying to get over because you will run into several blockades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers encourage visitors to arrive when gates open at 9 a.m. for a full day of racing, concerts and other activities.<\/p>\n
General admission tickets start at $35. Children 12 and younger are admitted free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major transformation is underway in North Texas as city streets in Arlington\u2019s entertainment district are turned into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-198638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}