It was the happiest racetrack on Earth … for five years.
One of the most unusual oval tracks in history was opened in 1996 to host the Indy Racing League (IRL).
The Walt Disney World Speedway was a one-mile tri-oval built next to one of the resort’s massive parking lots, just south of the Polynesian Village complex.
The no-frills track was built on a $6 million budget buy the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation without any permanent facilities. It was basically just the racing surface and wall. The idea was that grandstands and pit equipment would be brought in for events, like they are at street circuits.
Read Also: AMAZING DRONE FOOTAGE REVEALS WHAT NASCAR’S AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY LOOKS LIKE NOW
The track became known as the “Mickyard” and hosted its first IRL race in Jan. 1996, with Buddy Lazier qualify on pole at a blistering 181.388 mph and Buzz Calkins winning in front of more than 50,000 spectators.
Read Also: INDYCAR GRAND PRIX OF TEXAS COMING TO ARLINGTON IN 2026
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series would make its first of two visits the following year, when an infield lake Mickey Mouse would be added for drainage.
The IRL held four more races with Eddie Cheever, Tony Stewart, Cheever and Robbie Buhl claiming victory amid shrinking crowds. Tragedy struck before the 2000 race, when driver Sam Schmidt was paralyzed in a pre-season testing crash. Scheduling issues led the IRL to leave the track in 2001 as it added a race at Homestead-Miami Speedway to the schedule.
Read Also: INDYCAR MOVING TO FOX IN 2025 — FULL SCHEDULE RELEASED
The track would continue to be used for testing and recreational driving until 2015, when an instructor for the Exotic Driving Experience was killed in a crash just days after its closure later in the year had been announced.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE AMERICAN CARS AND RACING YOUTUBE CHANNEL
The property it stood on is now covered by a larger lake without the Mickey Mouse shape and new access roads that still incorporate part of the circuit’s outline that can be seen on Google Earth.
However, using Google Earth’s historical image feature reveals earlier iterations of what the track looked like including just before the 1999 race and in 2018, when the Mickey Mouse lake and more of the racing line, part of it bordered by trees, was still intact.
CLICK TO FOLLOW AMERICAN CARS AND RACING ON GOOGLE NEWS
The IndyCar Series that succeeded the Indy Racing League stopped racing at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2010 and now holds just one race in Florida each year, which is the season-opening Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
This post has been updated with additional imagery and information