Bristol Motor Speedway Tickets

Bristol Motor Speedway

Bristol Motor Speedway started with only 18,000 seats. More than 45 years later it has grown in capacity to seat over 160,000 race fans. Bristol Motor Speedway is a NASCAR short track located in Bluff City, Tennessee, near Bristol. Known first as the Bristol International Speedway, the track was added into the schedule in 1961. Bristol Motor Speedway is one of the shortest tracks on the Nextel Cup circuit and has the highest banking, 36 degrees. The combination at Bristol Motor Speedway is appealing for the driver and spectator alike.

Bristol Motor Speedway could have opened in 1961 under a different name. The first proposed site for the speedway was in Piney Flats. According to Carl Moore, who built the track along with Larry Carrier and R.G. Pope, the idea met local opposition. So the track that could have been called Piney Flats International Speedway was built five miles down the road on Hwy. 11-E in Bristol.

As recently as the late 1970s, Bristol Motor Speedway was regarded as a minor track located in a rural, somewhat isolated area, with seating for less than 30,000 persons. The land, upon which Bristol Motor Speedway is built, used to be a dairy farm. Work began on the track in 1960 and it took approximately one year to finish. Purchase of the land and construction of the track cost approximately $600,000.

Seating capacity was 18,000 for the very first NASCAR race at the Bristol Motor Speedway. The first driver on the track for practice on July 27, 1961, was Tiny Lund in his Pontiac. The second driver out was David Pearson. Fred Lorenzen won the pole for the first race at Bristol Motor Speedway with a speed of 79.225 mph. Atlanta's Jack Smith won the inaugural event (the Volunteer 500) on July 30, 1961; however, he was not in the driver's seat of the Pontiac by the end of the race. Smith drove the first 290 laps then had to have Johnny Allen, also of Atlanta, take over as his relief driver. The two shared the $3,225 purse. A total of 42 cars started the first race at Bristol Motor Speedway, but only 19 finished. The total purse for the race was $16,625. Country music star Brenda Lee sang the national anthem for the first race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The speedway was sold after the 1976 season to Lanny Hester and Gary Baker. In the spring of 1978 the track name was changed to Bristol International Raceway and the first night race was held on the oval track in August 1978. When Winston Cup racing was removed from the Nashville Fairgrounds after the 1984 season, Bristol Motor Speedway became Tennessee's only home for the top level of NASCAR racing.

Nicknamed "Thunder Valley,' the current Nextel Cup races held at Bristol Motor Speedway last 500 laps; one is generally sponsored by area grocery chain Food City and the other one has rotated among several sponsors. The track hosts the Food City 500 (Nextel Cup Series). It also host Sharpie 500 (Nextel Cup Series).

In August 1992, Bristol Motor Speedway became the first speedway that boasted a track surface that was all concrete to host a Winston Cup event. On January 22, 1996, Larry Carrier sold the speedway to Bruton Smith at a purchase price of $26 million. At the time of the sale, the facility seated 71,000.

NASCAR is very popular in Tennessee, as it is in most of the Southeastern United States and many Nashville-area NASCAR fans began annual (or biannual) trips to Bristol. Additions to the stands became an almost-annual event and the facility now seats in excess of 160,000 persons, making it by far the largest sports venue of any type in the state of Tennessee. In the past, dirt has been spread over the oval at Bristol Motor Speedway and it has been used for sprint car racing. Even these events have drawn over 100,000 spectators, a crowd almost unheard of in sprint history. Many of the fans come from the East Tennessee area, but thousands more come from all parts of the country to experience Bristol Motor Speedway's unique brand of racing.

Bristol is also a very fertile ground for other levels and types of racing; Busch Series races at Bristol Motor Speedway often draw over 100,000 spectators, making it one of the best-drawing Busch venues. For more information on NASCAR visit (www.nascar.com).