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Sprint Cup
CUP: Bristol Modifying Track For August
Responding to fan furor, Bristol is trimming progressive banking and tightening grooves…
Bristol Motor Speedway officials hold a press conference Wednesday to announce changes coming to the track ahead of Bristol's August NASCAR Sprint Cup Series weekend. (Photo: Mike Hembree)
Bristol Motor Speedway is being “modified” for NASCAR’s next visit.
Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith, saying he’s responding to fan complaints about racing at the half-mile, high-banked track, announced Wednesday that the BMS speedway surface will be changed in the turns to eliminate most of the progressive banking.
A grinding machine already is at work near the track’s outside walls to trim the angle of the track in the four turns. The short straightaways will not be changed.
After the track’s soaring grandstands were only about half full for the first race of the season here – and after many fan complaints since the track was widened and resurfaced in 2007, Smith vowed to make significant changes, possibly including ripping apart the surface and returning it to the pre-2007 design.
Discussion and study of the situation – and time limitations – made modifying the top part of the track and eliminating much of the progressive banking the best solution, Smith said.
“We didn’t want to create a train wreck here in what we’re doing,” Smith said. “We’re modifying what we have. We think it will be a lot better than it was. It will be exciting.
“We think we’ll win all these race fans over to our side on this. They’re going to love it. Chances are we’ll have a complete sellout in August.”
Smith said he also plans to ask Goodyear, which builds all tires used in NASCAR’s top three series, to approve a softer tire compound for Bristol, a change that also would impact the style of racing.
The work on the track, already under way, will be finished in time for Goodyear to run tire tests on the surface prior to the late-August race weekend, track general manager Jerry Caldwell said. He said he does not have a timetable for completion.
In a news release issued Wednesday about the track changes, Smith said an “overwhelming majority” of fans who responded in the early part of the process wanted alterations to the track. But he said Wednesday that 60 percent of fans did not want changes.
The track, long a fan favorite and home to 55 straight sellouts despite its 160,000-seat capacity, has been a center of controversy since the racing surface was widened in 2007 with the ideas of making competition better and increasing the passing opportunities. But fan complaints started almost immediately because the racing changed from the bump-and-run and aggressive style of past years.
Drivers almost universally praised the changes.
“We’re trying to satisfy both sides,” Smith said. “We want to be creative in what we’re doing. The majority of drivers said don’t touch it. They loved it. The main ones that didn’t like it were the race fans.”
Retired Sprint Cup champion Darrell Waltrip, a race analyst for NASCAR on FOX and a 12-time winner at Bristol, said the 2007 changes “gave drivers too many options. Before, the only option was to root and gouge and push somebody out of the way. When that was taken away, it made it a lot easier on the drivers. They seemed to enjoy it a lot more.
“But this track has a reputation. It was a ‘meat and three’ restaurant where you went because you knew the food was great and you’d be happy. And you were full. Then somebody turned it into a gourmet restaurant. It’s beautiful and perfect but not what you were used to. They took a blue-collar joint and spiffed it up a little too much.”
The changes presumably will make the top part of the track less attractive for drivers, thus, in theory, tightening the racing in other grooves.
“This will pull guys closer together,” Caldwell said. “They’ll still be able to pass and move around this place. Our ultimate goal is to put on a great show for the fans.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith, saying he’s responding to fan complaints about racing at the half-mile, high-banked track, announced Wednesday that the BMS speedway surface will be changed in the turns to eliminate most of the progressive banking.
A grinding machine already is at work near the track’s outside walls to trim the angle of the track in the four turns. The short straightaways will not be changed.
After the track’s soaring grandstands were only about half full for the first race of the season here – and after many fan complaints since the track was widened and resurfaced in 2007, Smith vowed to make significant changes, possibly including ripping apart the surface and returning it to the pre-2007 design.
Discussion and study of the situation – and time limitations – made modifying the top part of the track and eliminating much of the progressive banking the best solution, Smith said.
“We didn’t want to create a train wreck here in what we’re doing,” Smith said. “We’re modifying what we have. We think it will be a lot better than it was. It will be exciting.
“We think we’ll win all these race fans over to our side on this. They’re going to love it. Chances are we’ll have a complete sellout in August.”
Smith said he also plans to ask Goodyear, which builds all tires used in NASCAR’s top three series, to approve a softer tire compound for Bristol, a change that also would impact the style of racing.
The work on the track, already under way, will be finished in time for Goodyear to run tire tests on the surface prior to the late-August race weekend, track general manager Jerry Caldwell said. He said he does not have a timetable for completion.
In a news release issued Wednesday about the track changes, Smith said an “overwhelming majority” of fans who responded in the early part of the process wanted alterations to the track. But he said Wednesday that 60 percent of fans did not want changes.
The track, long a fan favorite and home to 55 straight sellouts despite its 160,000-seat capacity, has been a center of controversy since the racing surface was widened in 2007 with the ideas of making competition better and increasing the passing opportunities. But fan complaints started almost immediately because the racing changed from the bump-and-run and aggressive style of past years.
Drivers almost universally praised the changes.
“We’re trying to satisfy both sides,” Smith said. “We want to be creative in what we’re doing. The majority of drivers said don’t touch it. They loved it. The main ones that didn’t like it were the race fans.”
Retired Sprint Cup champion Darrell Waltrip, a race analyst for NASCAR on FOX and a 12-time winner at Bristol, said the 2007 changes “gave drivers too many options. Before, the only option was to root and gouge and push somebody out of the way. When that was taken away, it made it a lot easier on the drivers. They seemed to enjoy it a lot more.
“But this track has a reputation. It was a ‘meat and three’ restaurant where you went because you knew the food was great and you’d be happy. And you were full. Then somebody turned it into a gourmet restaurant. It’s beautiful and perfect but not what you were used to. They took a blue-collar joint and spiffed it up a little too much.”
The changes presumably will make the top part of the track less attractive for drivers, thus, in theory, tightening the racing in other grooves.
“This will pull guys closer together,” Caldwell said. “They’ll still be able to pass and move around this place. Our ultimate goal is to put on a great show for the fans.”
Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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