If You’re Going To Watch One NASCAR Race Make It A Race At Bristol

If there was any NASCAR race that you could take a non-fan to in an attempt to get them hooked, it would without a doubt be Bristol Motor Speedway. The Athletic writer Jeff Gluck has conducted a “Was it a Good Race” poll since the beginning of the 2017 season. Out of 297 races surveyed, Bristol Motor Speedway occupies three of the top five, and four of the top ten spots.

Of the 15 Bristol races included in the survey, eight scored over an 85% yes vote with the top race scoring a 95.7% yes out of 23,030 votes. Judging by the contents of most internet comment sections, it’s hard to even get a 50/50 consensus, let alone an overwhelming majority. For all of its history, Bristol Motor Speedway has been nearly unanimously agreed upon as the “perfect” track for stock car racing.

How did it become that?

A Quick History Of Bristol

In 1960, local businessman Larry Carrier was looking to expand his recreational activities empire in the Tennessee Tri-Cities area (Kingsport, Johnson City, and Bristol). After having his original plans rejected in Piney Flats, Carrier moved five miles south to Bristol and purchased a 100-acre plot of land from a local dairy farm. He constructed a 20,000 seat, half-mile facility for $750,000 and officially opened for business in 1961, hosting both a NASCAR race and a Washington Redskins vs Philadelphia Eagles NFL game.

In December 1964, Carrier announced plans to add a drag racing strip to the speedway complex. Carrier was also instrumental in founding the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) and by the mid-1970s had turned most of his focus to drag racing. In November 1977, Carrier sold his interest in the facility to Nashville-based businessmen Lanny Hester and Gary Baker for $1,000,000 to focus his attention on the growing IHRA series. Together the duo completed $200,000 worth of renovations to the speedway, increased the race purses, and added temporary lighting to allow the 1978 Volunteer 500 to become a night race.

The early 1980s saw the speedway expand its seating capacity to 50,000 while it passed through the hands of multiple ownership groups. By 1985, then-owner Warner Hodgdon was facing a mess of both legal and financial issues from a California bet rigging scandal to bankruptcies in both Tennessee and North Carolina. The facility was bought out of bankruptcy by none other than Larry Carrier for $4,500,000. Carrier continued to pump money into the facility, riding the wave of NASCAR’s increasing popularity through the late 1980s and into the ’90s. The surface was repaved, seating was again expanded and even more fan amenities were added under his ownership.

The speedway started a decades-long streak of selling out race tickets beginning at the 1982 Busch 500 with an attendance of 30,000 fans. After multiple expansions, the track was selling out crowds of over 76,000 seats by 1995. The track’s growing popularity attracted the attention of Speedway Motorsports CEO Bruton Smith, who purchased the facility from Carrier in 1996 for $26,000,000. Smith immediately conducted a massive renovation project and expanded the seating capacity to 120,000. Still the streak of sellouts persisted. In 1999, the facility again expanded, this time to 147,000 seats, and became the largest spectator arena in Tennessee. By 2002 the speedway could seat 160,000 fans and still the races continued to sell out.

This decades-long span of growth would begin to sputter out after the 2007 NASCAR season. The surface was repaved ahead of the 2008 season with progressive banking being added. The idea was to reduce the dominance of the bottom racing groove and create a multi-lane racing surface. The bottom lane was paved to 24* and the top lane was paved to 30*. As is often the case, messing with something that isn’t broken usually isn’t the best idea. This reconfiguration was immediately abhorred by fans as it moved the racing line to be predominantly along the fence. The shorter distance of the bottom lane struggled mightily to overcome the additional banking up the upper groove. The reduction in on-track action, combined with the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, saw the track’s sellout streak come to an end in 2010 after 55 races and 28 years.

For more history on the track check out this write-up from Racing Circuits.

There Have Been Some Great Moments

Bristol has had more than its fair share of memorable moments over the decades of racing. From Earnhardt Sr “just wanting to rattle his cage” to Earnhardt Jr coining the phrase “It’s Bristol, baby” the speedway has never been short for highlight reel moments.

Bristol Motor Speedway is one of the few concrete racetracks on the NASCAR schedule. For more detailed information about how a concrete racetrack acts differently to a traditional asphalt one you can check out my earlier piece on Dover Motor Speedway.

In an effort to restore the track to its former glory, NASCAR began treating the bottom lane of the racing surface with a traction compound for the 2016 season. The compound’s success in generating multiple racing grooves at Bristol Motor Speedway was the driving force behind NASCAR’s use of the compound at multiple other facilities throughout the late 2010’s and early 2020’s.

The traction compound is applied prior to the race and then the surface is not treated for the remainder of the event. As such, the compound will slowly get worn off as cars drive over it lap after lap. As the race progresses the compound’s added grip becomes marginally less. The early stages of the race tend to be bottom lane dominant and then the groove slowly moves up as the event progresses.

The middle portion of the race sees the grooves tend to equalize.

And by the final stage the top lane becomes dominant.

Drivers refer to this as chasing the grip, and it’s something you see dirt racers excel at. Drivers that grew up with a dirt oval background are much more accustomed to constantly changing grip levels and having to adjust their line consistently lap after lap. Each lap around the bottom has marginally less grip than the lap before, and each lap around the top has marginally more. The perfect driving line on lap 50 probably won’t work on lap 150 and definitely won’t work on lap 250. This is what makes good drivers shine at a track like Bristol. They have to figure out in real time where they need to be placing their racecar. There’s no chassis or air pressure adjustment that can make up for driving the racetrack wrong.

Because of the lane migration, teams need to build extra adjustability into their setups before heading to Bristol Motor Speedway. When running the bottom, the car has a tendency to oversteer. Similar to Dover Motor Speedway, cars will “fall” into the corner as they drop from the top of a banked straightaway towards the bottom of the corner. This drop off causes the sensation of corner entry oversteer as the rear of the car is pitched up and around the front end. When running the bottom, drivers typically only have their left side tires in the area treated with traction compound. This has the effect of hooking the left side of the car and pulling it around the corner like a tetherball.

As the racing groove moves up the track, the entry oversteer is alleviated because the drop off into the corner is reduced when running the middle lane. When the groove moves to the fence, drivers will actually be climbing the banking up into the corner. Essentially, the higher a driver’s line into the corner, the more the car’s balance will shift towards understeer. As soon as a driver leaves the bottom lane, the tetherball effect of the traction compound disappears and the balance is further shifted towards understeer. The net result is a racing surface that starts out with a tendency towards oversteer and swings aggressively to understeer. Teams must start the race with a plan to adjust the balance of the racecar at every pit stop in order to keep up with the migration of the racing groove.

This is all well and dandy while a driver is running by themselves, but when racing in traffic the balance of the car will never be perfect. A car that is balanced in the top lane will oversteer in the bottom lane. A car that is balanced in the bottom lane will understeer in the top lane. Let’s take a ride onboard with Dale Earnhardt Jr during the 2023 Xfinity Series race and you’ll quickly see what I’m talking about. Daniel Hemric is leading the race in his white #10 car. You can see that he consistently runs the lane that is most optimal to his racecar. As John Hunter Nemecheck in the white #20 car and Earnhardt Jr, who we are riding with, attempt to take the lead of the race you will see them constantly shift their racing line from the bottom to the top of the circuit. Every time they switch their line, the balance of the racecar shifts significantly.

Perhaps the only thing more important than car setup at Bristol Motor Speedway is traffic management. Because the track is so short, the leaders will catch the back of the field quickly, often as early as 20 laps into a run. The cars that are going a lap down are still running their own race and are thus under no expectation to lay over and give way to the leaders and with multiple grooves things can get dicey. It’s not uncommon for the leader to catch two cars battling for position where one of them is running the bottom and the other is running up on the top.

Judging which lanes have momentum and where a hole might open up are essential skills to success at Bristol. Overtaking cars will often try to use these lap down cars as a pick to complete a pass. You can see an example in this clip as Kevin Harvick in the green and yellow #4 battles for the lead with Chase Elliott in the black and orange #9. Harvick manages to get position on Elliott by using the bottom lane and utilizes Josh Bilicki in the black and yellow #52 as a rolling roadblock to hold up Elliott.

There’s a fine line that cannot be crossed when it comes to aggression in traffic. When the leader tries to get just a little bit too much, they can create a situation which will unravel their race. During the 2022 Xfinity series race, leader Justin Allgaier in the orange #7 was being chased down by Noah Gragson in the silver #9. Allgaier attempted to go through the middle of two lap down cars made contact with the white #66 of JJ Yeley, causing a caution flag. Noah Gragson ended up winning the race and Justin Allgaier had to settle for 9^th place after leading 148 of 300 laps.

Sometimes even the best traffic management skills aren’t enough to keep a driver out of trouble. Because of the banking angle and the tight radius of the corners, drivers will struggle with visibility when racing around Bristol Motor Speedway. In trying to look further around the corner, a lot of their vision will be blocked by the a-post pillar of the racecar. You can see here from Bubba Wallace’s visor cam how much area is blocked by this portion of the car and how he would struggle to look further around the corner. An incident occurring at the exit of the corner would be completely blocked from his vision.

Things happen fast at Bristol, and planning ahead is paramount. Even as the leader, drivers are not immune to being caught up in other people’s problems. As out spotter Kevin Hamlin likes to say, you’ve got to “Stay frosty” if you want to survive to see the finish of one of these races.

They call this track “The Last Great Coliseum” because the drivers who can find success here truly are gladiators. Physical, multi-groove racing is the epitome of stock car racing and no place embodies this more than Bristol Motor Speedway. Every corner, every lap is a risk, but the reward of victory at this historic facility is the ultimate prize for all who can attain it.

Top photo: Big Machine Racing/Daylon Barr