After hearing a myriad complaints about the lack of interesting racing at Bristol Motor Speedway; Bruton Smith, Chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports, announced his plans for significant modifications to the track on Thursday.
For decades the track located in Tennessee was a complete sellout. However, ever since the track was reconfigured, to include progressive banking, spectator interest has fallen dramatically.
|
Changes scheduled at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: Bristol Motor Speedway) |
The cause of the problem might be the banking which allows more cars to race side-by-side and thus the racing is missing the fender banging and aggression which was signature feature at the short oval.
The fans spoke via emails, Twitter, and any other medium whose message would reach Bruton Smith.
"I said when
this process began last month that I would listen to what the fans said they wanted," Smith said. "After a week to 10 days, there was no question that the overwhelming majority was asking for alterations to the track.
Ironically most of the NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers were very satisfied to race instead of wreck.
|
Twelve-time BMS winner and NASCAR Hall of Fame member Darrell Waltrip, Speedway Motorsports Inc. President Marcus Smith, Bristol Motor Speedway Executive Vice-President and General Manager Jerry Caldwell and Speedway Motorsports Inc. Chairman Bruton Smith discuss the details of the construction project with media members. (Photo: Bristol Motor Speedway) |
"Since March 28, when we announced that changes would be made, we have listened to fans, heard from drivers and talked to engineers about what to do and how much time we had to do it. Once we knew the direction, we located the right equipment to make it happen," added Smith.
"The majority of fans we heard from said they wanted adjustments made and the bulk of those said the progressive banking was what they didn't like," said Smith in explaining the decision-making process. "So, that's the focus of our efforts. And that is what we are working to change."
|
The striped line indicates that banking which will be removed by the paving project. (Photo: Bristol Motor Speedway) |
When the deteriorating BMS track surface was replaced in 2007, variable banking was added. Often referred to as “progressive” because the degrees increase from bottom to top, the layout provided multiple lanes of racing on the famed short track.
Smith said the choice to change the track surface did not come easy, but listening to the race fans always has served him well.
"More and more fans kept asking us to do something to the track," Smith said. "So I put it out there. They spoke and we listened. I want them to be happy; I want them to love their experience in Bristol. This will accomplish that and I know they will be pleased with the result."
|
Penhall Company machinery developed specifically for the Bristol Motor Speedway project in Turn 4. (Photo: Bristol Motor Speedway) |
Goodyear Tire & Rubber said that they would conduct tire tests in June.
"We're happy with our current tire set-up at Bristol but we always have to keep up with track changes, so we plan to run a test to determine what will best suit the specific modifications made to Bristol," said Stu Grant, Goodyear's general manager of worldwide racing. "We will start out our test with the existing Bristol tire set-up, in order to determine if the changes to the track surface require any changes to our tread compound formulation. We'll then evaluate if the track surface has changed and if we'll need to bring back something different for the race in August."
"Being a concrete surface, we always need to manage the ‘rubbering in' process," added Grant. "Concrete seems to be more sensitive to taking rubber, so we need to make sure we get the right combination of tires to match up with this race track. The most important thing to us is making sure the actual racing surface is the same from the bottom of the track to the top."
Participating teams are to be determined.