DailyPitStop: Texas Motor Speedway’s Big Hoss TV Is Awesome

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Photo Credit: Toby Christie / The Daily Pitstop
Article By: Toby Christie

It is the size of nine Alamos. It’s twice as tall as Big Tex (The State Fair of Texas’ Mascot). It’s freaking huge. I’m of course talking about Texas Motor Speedway’s new HD video screen, Big Hoss TV.Wednesday evening the speedway finally unveiled the screen, and it is impressive.It’s crisp. It’s clear. It basically makes you ashamed of your perfectly fine 40″-60″ television screen at home — and that’s the point. Eddie Gossage says that the Speedway added the screen to help the racetrack compete with the race fan’s ever-improving home entertainment center.

Mission accomplished.

According to Bruton Smith though, Gossage’s original plan was for a screen about twice the size of the world-record sized one Texas Motor Speedway now has in place. After seeing the sheer size of Big Hoss TV, my mouth is watering to see a 400-foot wide screen.

However Richard Ballard, VP of Panasonic, explained that a bigger screen would actually not be beneficial for the speedway and the fans in attendance.

Even though the 218 foot-wide screen pales in comparison to the outlandish original design that Gossage had in plan, this new screen is in a word from a person who has attended many races — perfect. The screen will display a special cut of footage that fans at home won’t get to see. Texas Motor Speedway will have 19-different camera angles, their own play-by-play crew, and best of all — no commercials.

Big Hoss TV will instead feature sponsored leader boards and graphics, but there will not be ads that take up the entire screen while the race is in progress.

“We can go with graphics. We can share experiences with the best camper decorated area, or people that have the most creative way of displaying the Dasani bottles or what have you,” Marcus Smith, President and Chief Marketing Officer of SMI, said. “We have found a lot of creative ways to integrate sponsors into the weekend, and the best ones are really the ones that integrate the fans in some fun.”

Want Some Stats on Big Hoss TV?

Number of different colors that can be displayed: 281 trillion
Pixels : 4,792,320 (3,328 x 1,440 — exceeding full HD resolution)
Number of LEDs on the face of display: 14,376,960
Distance between adjacent dsiplay pixels (in millimeters): 20
Total weight of the structure: 960,000 lbs.
Weight of the LED video display: 216,000 lbs.
Active display area: 20,633 square feet
Brightness: 6,500 cd/m2 (approximately 30 times brighter than a standard HDTV)
Maximum Power: 1,380,000 watts
Width of Big Hoss: 218 feet
Height of Big Hoss: 94 feet
Horizontal viewing arc: 135 degrees
Height from the ground: 125 feet
Wind speed Big Hoss is built to withstand: 120 mph
Number of buried support beams: 16
Depth that supports are buried: 40 feet
Current average viewing distance: 2,000 feet

Did you miss out on the unveil of Big Hoss TV? Don’t worry, you can get a look at the screen at the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in a couple of weeks.