‘Speedway Christmas’ opening for the season at Charlotte Motor Speedway

CONCORD, N.C. (WBTV) - The biggest holiday light show in the Carolinas opens up for the season.

For the 13th year, the Charlotte Motor Speedway is hosting Speedway Christmas, this year with more than four million lights over a nearly four-mile-long road course.

Crews have been hard at work to put it all together, checking millions of bulbs.

They’ve been challenged by the weather occasionally this year, and by the fact that this is a working racetrack where they sometimes need to stay out of the way.

“Every year we get bigger and badder and it’s fun,” Garrett Carter, VO of operations with the speedway, said. “Our staff really enjoys it. Obviously, it can be a little tough here and there to put it up because of long hours and obviously being in the cold and the rain. At the end of the day we love it; it’s what we do.”

Workers have been on the job six days a week, 10 hours a day, for more than five weeks. When the sun goes down Friday, they’ll flip the switch on the magical experience.

Speedway Christmas runs from Nov. 18 to Jan. 8, 2023. The daily hours are 6 to 10 p.m. Tickets can be purchased on the speedway’s website.

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