The Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race held annually at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the first of two races at Las Vegas with the other one being the South Point 400 in the playoffs. The inaugural race was held in 1998. For several years, the race was sponsored by United Auto Workers and DaimlerChrysler. From its inception, the race was run at a distance of 400 miles (640 km) except 2009, which was 427 miles. The extra 27 miles in the 2009 race were added by the sponsors Carroll Shelby International.
Pennzoil 400 (Las Vegas)
Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a 1.5 miles (2.4 km) tri-oval intermediate speedway in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The track complex, since its inaugural season of racing in 1972 with off-road and drag racing, has seen expansion and has hosted various racing series, including NASCAR, IndyCar, and Champ Car. The track has been owned by Speedway Motorsports, LLC (SMI) since 1999, with Chris Powell serving as the track's general manager. The track is served by the nearby Interstate 15 and Las Vegas Boulevard.
An overhead picture of Las Vegas Motor Speedway taken in 2011.
The infield of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, pictured in 2004.
The lap 11 crash at the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship. The crash took the life of Dan Wheldon, which led to the cancelling of the race and scrapped any future normal human-driven IndyCar races at the track. The track has become the home of IndyCar-sanctioned autonomous vehicle competitions since 2022.