“Everything is really starting to take shape,” said Waltrip. “It’s all coming together before our eyes. We’ve secured sponsorship for two NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series teams and we have an org chart put together with a plan in place.”

The 130,000 SF innovative facility will be comprised of two main buildings and house an interactive race shop on 11.5 acres. The primary building, formerly a 42,000 SF popular movie theater in Cornelius, will be expanded by an additional 50,000 SF and will house all four of Michael Waltrip Racing’s teams as well as executive offices. The main building will also be the epicenter of The Waltrip Racing World Experience, including a theater, a restaurant, a museum and a retail store. The second building, referred to as the FX building, will house the manufacturing of the teams cars, including the chassis and body fabrication and the paint shop. Additionally, the FX building will house a seven-post shaker rig, the team’s workout and pit stop practice facilities.

“We’re maybe a month away from moving into the FX building in the back,” said Waltrip. “We're happy about that. That will give use the opportunity to begin preparing our cars not only for Bill Elliott’s schedule in 2006, but also to start formulating a plan to put our Toyota Camrys together. Our goal was to get it up and running as quickly as possible. At the same time, we’re making a lot of progress on the movie theater. Everybody is focused on being done by May 1st of 2007. That's the target date for us to use all of the 130,000 SF of Waltrip Racing World. For the time being, the FX building has plenty of room for us to get our legs under us.”