Just got back from my second racing event of the year, and as usual I wasn’t on the track. We flew a planeload of company folks down to Bristol for the Winston Cup bash at the amazing half mile track. We have a plant at nearby Johnson City, TN, and fly into the local airport several times a year. About three years ago I stopped by to look at the track as it was undergoing major modification with additional grandstand seating under construction. The construction looks like it’s continued unabated ever since, and the whole facility could rival Jim Carrey’s world in "The Truman Show" as it’s probably visible from outer space. The track is built into the side of the hill and the grandstands tower about 8 stories high with double layered hospitality suites stretching almost two thirds away around the upper deck. There are about 130,000 seats with almost half again as many people on the waiting list for tickets to the two annual Winston Cup events. Add possibly another 10,000 in the hundreds of suites and you have attendance which easily eclipses the University of Michigan stadium or Superdome or Rose Bowl or whatever. All these fans are stacked up watching the action on what’s billed as the world’s fastest half mile, with concrete turns banked up 36 degrees connecting two short straights which are also banked a good 5 degrees. The cars are whipping around in qualifying at about 15 seconds per lap which adds up to over 125 mph average speed! I’m sure the view from inside the car entering the banking would be like driving into a concrete wall with G forces almost equivalent.

We left the Tri Cities Airport just a bit after 9:00am in heavy rain for the 20 mile drive to the track for a scheduled 1:00pm start. By the time we were within about 4 miles of the gates the road was lined with cars parked on the shoulders and people flashing signs to park on their farm for 10 bucks per car. The roads were also lined with people looking much like Kosovo refugees slogging through the rain towards the track. We braved the stop and go driving in the nice warm car and were rewarded with a free gravel parking area just about a mile past the track, near the end of the recently rebuilt Bristol drag strip, also featuring free shuttle buses back to the track. The area around the facility is quite hilly, and a lot of campers and trucks looked like they would require wreckers and winches to pull them out of farmer Buck’s back forty. After another half hour delay in the car, the rain finally stopped and we hit the road walking back down along the dragstrip, which had been converted into RV parking for race fans who looked like they’d been there for weeks, and some of their RVs looked like leftovers from NATO airstrikes. We took the elevator up to the company suite located at the end of the track right between turns three/ four, and from our perch up about 150 feet we were at an angle looking straight down the banking and could take in the whole track without much moving of head or eyeballs. We settled in for some serious lunching while watching the NASCAR crew blow-drying the track.

The racing is just like your typical across the street from Road Atlanta Lake Lanier Speedway Saturday night, only on a grander scale. The 43 starters take up a third of the slightly over half mile, and once they’re turned loose they stretch out over half the track even while running double file. Two abreast is not the best idea, and within a dozen laps the lead cars are lapping the back of the pack. More often than not the lead car was Rusty Wallace, although Tony Stewart led at mid-race before he and Jeff Gordon got caught up in a multi-car shunt and lost enough positions with multiple pit visits for duct tape to put both cars out of contention. Wallace had everyone pretty well covered, although Mark Martin put some pressure on Rusty in the late laps. Asked afterward if he could have caught Wallace, Martin responded sure I could catch him but I couldn’t get by. Passing was possible: faster car had to get his front fender under the passee’s left rear under braking into the turn and stay there through the banking. Coming off the corner, the faster car stays to the inside and allows the other car enough room to exit the corner side by side. But then the car on the outside has to lift earlier to prevent getting pushed into a scrape with the wall on the next turn, and winds up falling in line behind the faster car, unless there are two more cars down below as there usually are. So there’s only one really fast line through the corner, and with patience a faster car can slowly move up. Of course one must be ready to swap some paint in the corners, and by mid-race just about everyone had a nasty looking collection of scrapes and tire doughnuts decorating the sides of their cars. Shunts were relatively minor compared to Saturday’s Busch race which I watched on TV, and just about everyone involved managed to get back on track eventually, though maybe minus a front clip or a couple of fenders.
But by the time Martin was unsuccessfully chasing after Wallace in the the car, and listened to the finish on the radio during a few very short delays leaving the track area. Had we stayed through the 4:00pm. finish we would have been lucky to get back to the airport by dark, and the passengers also left the close-in reserved parking with about 20 laps left and almost beat us to the plane. The rows of roadside parked cars stretched easily five miles away as we left the area. In talking to several folks close to the NASCAR scene, I found that the plan over this winter is to run one or two tunnels under the track to a paddock area outside the grandstand area with a new garage area and parking for team transports. The infield area will then be sodded for football, as they figure they can sell out several U of Tenn. SEC rivalries each year and maybe eventually land a major post season bowl event. With the setup now in place, I wouldn’t be too surprised if someday they would host a Super Bowl, although I don’t think the Bristol Motel 6 hospitality areas could compete with Miami and San Diego hotels quite yet. Now that I’m suitably inspired and it’s above freezing in the garage, maybe I can get my car on track by Memorial Day!

Copyright 1999, Land O'Lakes Region.
Last revised: May 8, 1999