As an Englishman, I am a little oblivious to the workings of any major spectator sport other than my beloved football, and so wrote features on 'The 10 Largest Football Stadiums' and then followed this up with 'The 10 Largest English Football Stadiums'; and it has taken a few months for something to dawn on me. Maybe there are spectator sports that are way beyond football in terms of the number of spectators at each event? and of course there was! Although football (and by that I mean soccer for you Americans) is the world's most viewed and played sport, not one of the world's top 10 stadiums is used for football games and none of them have been featured by me before. Please note that these stadiums are sorted by capacity and not largest in terms of floor area; read on to enjoy a brief look at the 10 largest stadiums on planet earth!

The Worlds largest stadium is the Indianapolis Speedway which holds an astonishing 257,325 spectators, which is some 100,000 more people than the world's largest football stadium! It actually seats 400,000 courtesy of a temporary infill, however I will only count permanent seating in this particular feature. The stadium is the home of the Indianapolis 500-mile race and has also hosted Formula 1 grand prix races, and has been open since March 1909. It has held 244 major races in 100 years and the site now covers some 559 acres.

The world's second largest stadium by capacity is the Tokyo Racecourse, which is located in Tokyo of course, and was originally built in 1933 for horse racing. It is still used for horse racing and regularly hosts some of Asia's most prestigious racing events, including the Japan Cup and the Japanese Derby. The stadium recently underwent a major renovation which too seven years and was completed in 2007, improvements included the addition of the world's largest video screen and the building of a new grandstand (which increased the capacity).

The Shanghai International Circuit was opened in 2004 at a construction cost of $450bn and is used solely as a motor racing venue. It was venue of the inaugural venue of the  F1 Chinese Grand Prix in September 2004. The site took just 18 months to transform from swampland to international standard racetrack and holds 200,000 spectators at any one time. It has also held the MotoGP world championship, the V8 Supercar championship, and the A1 Grand Prix. Each lap of the course is 3.4 miles long.

The fourth largest stadium in the world is the Daytona International Speedway which has the capacity to hold 167,785 spectators. The stadium was opened in 1959 after taking 2 years to construct at the cost of $3m, and has held the famous 'Daytona 500' race since it's first year; the Daytona 500 is a 500 mile long NASCAR race which is also fondly known as 'The Great American Race'. Daytona Speedway also holds various other vehicle races, including anything from pickup trucks to go karts.

Lowe's Motor Speedway is a circuit in North Carolina, featuring a 1.5 mile long track and seating for 167,000 people. There is also room for a number of spectators standing around the track, however this cannot be counted towards determining the stadium capacity. It was constructed at the same time as the Daytona International Speedway, finishing in 1959, and is considered the home of NASCAR with 90% of teams being based within just 50 miles of the stadium. Although primarily a racing venue, the site has also hosts car shows and has been the location of a number of movies and shows.

Nakayama Racecourse, in Japan, is used solely for horse racing and has a capacity of 165,676 of which 15,944 is accounted for by seating. Owned by the the Japan Racing Association and open since 1907, the course hosts a number of famous Asian races including the Arima Kinen (Grand Prix) and the Nakayama Grand Jump. The races at the stadiums are screened each Saturday by TV Tokyo and each Sunday by Fuji TV.

The Bristol Speedway is another NASCAR track and is located in Bristol, Tennessee. Constructed in 1960, it is one of the shortest NASCAR tracks but it is very popular amongst spectators for it's amphitheater-like seating arrangement and it's completely concrete surface. The stadium holds some 160,000 spectators and has parking facilities for 12,000 cars on it's concourse, and the stadium holds two Guinness World Records - the first for the largest crowd-wave in history (sell out crowd) and the second for the largest karaoke in history (also with a sell out crowd).

The Suzuka International Racing Course (also known as the Suzuka Circuit) is a motorsport racing track in the city of Suzuka, Japan. The course is owned and operated by a subsidiary of Honda and was in fact originally designed in 1962 as a Honda race track. The Suzuka Circuit is one of just a few world tracks to have a figure of 8 design, which has been made famous by Scalextrics sets. The Suzuka Circuit is most famously used for hosting the Japanese Grand Prixand is one of the oldest operational Formula 1 circuits in the World Championship. Other races held at the Suzuka have included NASCAR exhibition races.

Istanbul Park, also known as the 'Istanbul Racing Circuit' is a motor sports race track just east of Istanbul and has been open since August 2005. The stadium is the venue for the Turkish Grand Prix and has the honour of being labelled as "the best race track in the world" by Bernie Ecclestone. The stadium has the capacity for 155,000 spectators, including 25,000 seats. Although F1 is it's primary use, it has also hosted FIA World Touring Car Championship legs and MotoGP rounds.

The Texas Motor Speedway is located in Fort Worth, Texas, and is 1.5 miles in length. The circuit is owned by the same company which controls Lowe's Motor Speedway and the Bristol Motor Speedway. The stadium was constructed at a cost of $250 million and was opened on 29th February 1996, it has a stadium capacity of 154,861, and the circuit is used primarily for NASCAR and IndyCar races.