After three years of the dirt race, concrete Bristol returns for the spring race. This is a welcome move for Cup drivers as they prepare to face off at a track steeped in NASCAR history.
“When I was a kid, Bristol was one of the main reasons I wanted to be a racecar driver,” Chase Elliott said about the track that has been on the Cup schedule since 1961. “I mean, just that environment was unbelievable.”
A jewel in the Appalachian Mountains, the .533-mile track has high walls and looming grandstands, so the fans are watching the competitors from on high.
The design of The Last Great Colosseum further enhances the cheers and boos of the raucous fans during intros and as drivers race door-to-door on the banked turns.
Racing on the concrete configuration of Bristol is an experience unlike any other. The same can be said about holding a sword aloft after parking a beat-up race car in victory lane.
“I feel like every driver when they grow up, there’s a couple of racetracks on the schedule where you dream of getting to race at,” Chase Briscoe said. “And Bristol is one of those tracks.”
Bristol also holds a special place in the hearts of NASCAR fans. The short track has provided thrills over the decades, a run that includes Kevin Harvick and Elliott feuding in 2021 and Dale Earnhardt spinning out Terry Labonte in 1999 while trying to “rattle his cage.”
“Definitely the Dale Earnhardt/Terry Labonte stuff comes to mind,” Josh Berry told NBC Sports about his favorite Bristol fan memories. “… Between that and Kyle Busch winning all three races in the weekend.
“I know a lot of people didn’t like that, but damn, I mean, that was impressive.”
The result of the action on the track is that Bristol became the hardest ticket in NASCAR to obtain. The track sold out 55 consecutive races between 1982-2010.
Bristol had a capacity of more than 160,000 — it dropped to 146,000 in 2021 — but fans still struggled to obtain tickets for either of its races each season.
“I remember my dad owned a restaurant and one of the food suppliers or whatever would give us tickets to stuff every now and then,” Berry said. “(Nashville) Predators games, maybe a (Tennessee) Titans game every now and then.
“I remember one year we got tickets to the Bristol night race and that was crazy because it was so packed. I mean, he couldn’t get tickets for years and years and years and years.”
Berry doesn’t remember the winner of his first Bristol race — he said maybe it was Matt Kenseth. What he remembers is parking very far away, having to walk to the track among a sea of people and how valuable those tickets were.
Berry hopes that this tradition will continue Sunday as the Bristol brings back the spring race on concrete.
It’s not that Cup drivers were opposed to the idea of a dirt race. Berry said that he had fun in last season’s dirt race at Bristol while replacing an injured Elliott. Chris Buescher said that he has “an absolute blast” every time he gets to do proper dirt racing.
Bristol is just known for its action and drama, something that the concrete surface has delivered over the decades.
The Bristol races on dirt had its occasional exciting moments, such as Kyle Busch winning in 2022 after Briscoe and Tyler Reddick made contact and spun out in the final turn. Yet these dirt races did not provide the same level of fireworks as races on the concrete configuration.
Fans also didn’t see a driver jumping over a car to get in another driver’s face as Harvick did in 2002. They didn’t see a driver throwing a helmet at a competitor after a wreck, a la Tony Stewart in 2012.
While some drivers in the Cup field said that they had fun on Bristol’s dirt track, they also voiced opinions about how to make a Cup race on dirt more to their liking. Specifically, move it to a different location.
“I love Bristol,” Ricky Stenhouse Jr. said last weekend at Phoenix. “Obviously, I grew up dirt racing. We’ve had — I think — two (top-five finishes) at the three dirt races we’ve had there, but for me, I’ve always just loved the concrete Bristol.”
Kyle Larson also voiced support for returning to two concrete races at Bristol while citing the larger crowd sizes.
Briscoe has used multiple opportunities to suggest running a Cup dirt race at the Stewart-owned Eldora Speedway.
Rather than move the dirt race to another track, NASCAR just took it off this season’s schedule.
Dirt could return in the future — anything is possible — but for now the Cup drivers get to compete on the concrete surface twice while following in the footsteps of stock car racing legends and trying to create their own iconic moments.
“Bristol on concrete is a great racetrack and better than anywhere else we go to, in my opinion,” Buescher said.
“So I’m gonna sit here and say ‘Don’t mess with it anymore. Leave it alone and we’ll be just fine and we’ll put on some good racing.’”
Dustin Long contributed to this story.
