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 NAS-

I CAR 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 X nity 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 ve-time X nity winner at the track while superstar racers Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and Clint Bowyer were making names for themselves a decade and some change ago. ey 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.” e 1.33-mile Superspeedway concrete track was completed in 2001 by Dover Motorsports Inc. and, in addition to X nity races, also hosted NASCAR’s truck series and IndyCar races through 2011. But, says former Tennessean racing reporter Larry Woody, not having NASCAR’s agship series on the calendar meant the other races couldn’t keep the track a oat as a business. e Indy cars didn’t return after 2008 and the X nity 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.” e 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. e 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

bring its annual awards banquet downtown last year and return races to the Superspeedway.

“We are excited to bring NASCAR racing back to Nashville, a place where the passion for our sport runs deep,” NASCAR President Steve Phelps said in June when announcing the 20212024 races. “ e Nashville market is a vital one for our sport.”

Bringing Cup Series racing to the Superspeedway — “I thought that train had left the station,” Woody says — could also prove to be a catalyst for the region’s other prominent track. e cityowned Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway held 42 Cup Series from 1958 to 1984, the last one a Geo Bodine win. Nearly 35 years later, executives of Speedway Motorsports Inc. — which owns eight of the sport’s best-known tracks, including Bristol Motor Speedway — approached the city with a $60 million public-private spending plan to upgrade and expand the historic 0.6-mile track in Wedgewood-Houston, which rst held a race in 1904. e SMI plan would look to tie the track’s infrastructure to that of the adjacent Nashville SC stadium being built. Mayor John Cooper has said he is looking for a “holistic” redevelopment of the entire Fairgrounds property but hasn’t committed to SMI’s plan in any way.

“It’s huge because it would be unique in showing NASCAR’s commitment to Nashville,” McCabe says of SMI’s proposal. “ e fact that NASCAR would be willing to go to two di erent tracks in the same market with two di erent ownership groups just shows you how important this city is to them.

“If fans want this to happen, they need to go out to the Superspeedway. at makes that decision that much easier once the work on the Fairgrounds that needs to be done is done. NASCAR would be like, ’Sure, we’ll hold two di erent races at two di erent places because the fans want it.’”

Should their plan come to fruition — and that’s a big if given Metro’s nances and the overall economic picture — SMI executives would be expected to rst bring X nity and Truck Series races to the Fairgrounds. But an investment as big as the $60 million being oated would only really pay o with a Cup race. And Woody says that’s a very long shot.

“I don’t think the Fairgrounds has a prayer of getting a Cup race,” he says. “It’s too old, it’s land-locked, surrounded by schools and neighborhoods and would take millions and millions of dollars to get access roads in there, so the Fairgrounds never had a chance to get a Cup race back, in my opinion.

“ ey had Cup races until 1984 until NASCAR pulled the races then. It was almost impossible back then when the Fairgrounds only seated about 20,000 people. It was a great track in its era, and it’s still a great track for local racing. But in terms of hosting a Cup race, it doesn’t have a chance.”