SPORTS
Shifting gears Next year’s Superspeedway race could be the tip of the iceberg for NASCAR’s return to the region BY MICHAEL GALLAGHER
t’s been nearly a decade since NASCAR last held a race in Nashville. And it has been almost four decades since the city last saw a top-level Cup Series race. Between April 2001 and July 2011, the Nashville Superspeedway in Wilson County’s Gladeville community hosted 21 races of the NASCAR Xfinity Series, NASCAR’s second-level racing circuit that showcased many of the sport’s stars before they became household names. Carl Edwards, who has since retired, was a five-time Xfinity winner at the track while superstar racers Brad Keselowski,
I
44
FALL 2020 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM
Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and Clint Bowyer were making names for themselves a decade and some change ago. They and other NASCAR Cup Series stars will return next June as part of a surprise fouryear deal announced in June. “We were seeing those guys as they were coming up before their prime,” says Chase McCabe, co-host of Darren, Daunic & Chase on ESPN 102.5-FM. “Now that they’re in their prime and competing for and winning championships, it’ll be huge to have them back as a part of the Cup Series.” The 1.33-mile Superspeedway concrete track was completed in 2001 by Dover Motorsports Inc. and, in addition to Xfinity races, also hosted NASCAR’s truck series and IndyCar races through 2011. But, says former Tennessean racing reporter Larry Woody, not having NASCAR’s flagship series on the calendar meant the other races couldn’t keep the track afloat as a business. The Indy cars didn’t return after 2008 and the Xfinity and Truck series left after 2011.
Dover executives soon after said they would close the track and have since sold about 377 acres they owned around the track to development company Panattoni. But they’ve kept the track itself in game shape, so to speak. “I was given a tour [this summer] by some of the Dover people and the place looks like it hadn’t changed in 10 years,” Woody says. “As far as I could tell, there really wouldn’t have to be much done in terms of preparations. When the Superspeedway was built, it was a state-ofthe-art track. Now, if it’s successful next year and they sell 30,000 seats, they could immediately start adding more seats.” The average attendance at a Cup Series race hovered around 61,000 before the COVID-19 pandemic spread. Somewhere between $8 million and $10 million will be spent to prepare the venue for 2021’s race and more could follow should the demand require an expansion. The absence of high-level auto racing in Music City appears to have helped grow fans’ appetite, and the city’s growth as a travel destination helped lead NASCAR to
