In mid-October, it was announced that Tennessee and Virginia Tech would play a 2016 football game at the famed Bristol Motor Speedway. Two years ahead of that historic matchup, the two head coaches of the respective programs soaked in the atmosphere -- and the rain -- at the aptly-nicknamed Thunder Valley.
UT’s Butch Jones and Tech’s Frank Beamer served as the grand marshals for the Food City 500 NASCAR race in Bristol Sunday. Additionally, the two head coaches, after the second of what could be a handful of rain delays, gave the command to the 43 drivers in the field to start their engines.
It wasn’t the best command ever given, but it certainly wasn’t the worst... or the most demeaning. Here’s the video of the coaches doing their race thing, courtesy of the UT Sports YouTube channel:
The Vols-Hokies game, dubbed “The Battle at Bristol,” will be played Sept. 10, 2016 at the World’s Fastest Half-Mile. Each football program is expected to pull in more than $4 million for the game, which, in the 160,000-plus seat racing coliseum, could set an all-time attendance record for college football.
Additionally, and as a dyed-in-the-wool member of Junior Nation, I feel obliged to post a pick of the two head coaches conversing with Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- a South Carolina Gamecocks football fan, by the way -- during the rain delay:
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