community. He flew to Los Angeles in October 1966, met with Stolte and viewed the proposed site which had by then been subdivided into fourteen separate parcels owned by 150 individual owners, many of them Hollywood celebrities who had bought the land for tax shelters. Lockton spent the next nine months acquiring options on all of the fourteen parcels and then leveraged his position as the drivers’ representative on the board of USAC (United States Auto Club) the sanctioning body for the Indianapolis 500 race; and his personal friendship with Tony Hulman, owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to obtain not only the promise of a USAC sanctioned race, but also the commitment and involvement of Indianapolis Motor Speedway personnel. He obtained the first and only IRS ruling to allow tax deductibility of the $25.5 million industrial revenue bond offering secured by the real estate, in which the facility would be run by a for-profit operating company. Lockton convinced leading bond investment banker John Nuveen & Co. in Chicago as well as Citi Securities Corporation in Indianapolis to underwrite the bond offering. He also raised $5 million in equity from Pioneer Lands Corp.; Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette; and Stolte Construction Company; with Lockton and these three entities owning the speedway in more or less equal proportions. Renowned California architect Robert W. Kite AIA whose firm, Kite & Overpeck Architects, Beverly Hills, was retained by Stolte to design the state-of-the-art facility The track layout was designed by Dutch Circuit designer John Hugenholtz (Managing Director of the Zandvoort Formula 1 circuit), who also designed Suzuka in Japan, Zolder, Jarama, Nivelles, Hockenheim and other circuits.. Robert (Bob) Kite traveled extensively throughout the United States and Europe to research the design of the facility. Track management planned to make OMS as a replica of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with many important enhancements. The racing surface was one lane wider and, unlike the Indy speedway, the short chutes (the two shorter straight-aways, at either end of the track) were banked, which made the OMS slightly faster. In addition, the OMS was built with an infield road course, making it a facility for both oval and road course style racing in addition to drag racing. At the time, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, familiarly known as "the Brickyard" did not have an infield road course and one was not built there until 2000. The Indianapolis track, which