When a friend has had a hell of a past 7 months and requests a road trip for her birthday and Bristol is the top of her choices you make it happen. Now Bristol will always hold a special place in my heart as we spent the last weekend of our honeymoon, 13 years ago at the race track in Bristol. Bristol is also where our racing addiction started. My husband was always a race fan and two weeks before our wedding we took the kids and headed out to my local home track where I grew up watching racing. During the races these little Jr Late Models came out onto the track and my step daughter looked at me and said ” I want one of those. I need to race”. When we returned from our honeymoon, we went back to http://www.delawarespeedway.com and the Jr Late Models were there again. My husband talked to a few of the parents and one thing led to another and 13 years later we have a racing addiction that we wouldn’t change for the world.
So why Bristol???? Bristol is in Tennessee, need I say more? LOL. Bristol is a very unique track. Sometimes referred to as a “fish bowl”, when the racing starts you won’t be able to hear anything except the cars and the whole place vibrates for the entire race. Bristol is often called ” The Last Great Colosseum” (although we would disagree as we attended the inaugural race at the Colosseum in LA. Both are great spots for races), The World’s Fastest Half Mile, The Holy Grails of Short Tracks and Thunder Valley. Bristol’s stadium-like structure has been used for many events in racing, football, concerts and many more. The past few years one of the two races on the NASCAR schedule each year at Bristol was done on dirt. While enjoying racing at the iconic oval, fans are offered a unique viewing experience courtesy of Colossus TV, the world’s largest outdoor center-hung four-sided video screen with a 540,000-watt audio system. The historic facility, forged amid the scenic mountains of Northeast Tennessee near the Virginia state line, earned its reputation for producing incredible finishes.
Bristol was built in 1960 taking a year to finish. Most of the original ideas and plans were written on envelopes and brown paper bags. The purchase of the land (a little over 100 acres) and the cost to build the track was $600 000. The track now sits on more than 500 acres and has grown to include many luxury man cave suites, bar stools in the Busch Banks and Brews Decks and even a night club called The Apex inside the Oval.
Track Details from https://www.bristolmotorspeedway.com/media/
0.533-mile concrete oval
Degree of banking in corners: Variable, 24 to 28 Degrees
Degree of banking on frontstretch: 5 to 9 degrees
Degree of banking on backstretch: 4 to 8 degrees
Straightaways: 650 feet
Concrete racing surface is 40 feet wide
NASCAR Cup Series event: 500 laps (266.5 miles concrete layout)
NASCAR Xfinity Series event: 300 laps (159.9 miles)
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event: 200 laps (106.6 miles, concrete layout)
ARCA Menards Series event: 200 laps (106.6 miles)
On Friday March 15th, Jenny and I will load up the Ford Bronco and head for Bristol, with really no plans other than attending The Weather Guard Truck Race http://www.nascar.com/nascar-craftsman-truck-series on Saturday and the Food City 500 (NASCAR second longest entitlement sponsor) http://www.nascar.com/nascar-cup-series on the Sunday. What else happens we will have to see! Sometimes we keep the shenanigans low key and quiet and sometimes we end up on the front page of the local paper, but regardless we always have fun!!!!! Stay tuned!!!!
