Kentucky Speedway officials, who oversaw one of the worst traffic debacles in NASCAR history at the track’s inaugural Sprint Cup race last summer, Wednesday promised dramatic improvement for this year’s second race at the facility, according to Mike Hembree of Speed.com.

Officials said the track has purchased and-or improved 326 acres of parking at or near the track and that they will be able to park from 12,000 to 18,000 more cars at this year’s race.

Parking was a major problem at last year’s race. The difficulties led to thousands of fans being stranded on highways near the track. Many never made it to the facility for the race.

The chaos became so pronounced that Bruton Smith, chairman of Speedway Motorsports, and other high-level SMI officials ventured into the parking areas to try to assist in parking cars and moving traffic.

“We’re going to do it over, and we’re going to do it right this time,” said Smith.

“Whatever could go wrong probably went wrong as far as traffic was concerned. We’ve purchased more land. We’ve opened a lot more parking, so that will not be an excuse. We’re going to work hard to prove ourselves.”

The work also includes improved access from nearby Interstate 71, which had massive traffic jams in both directions near the track last summer.

The track’s NASCAR weekend is scheduled June 28-30. Officials said all improvements will be completed before the race.