Erik Moses attended his first NASCAR race in 2019 as an XFL executive looking to poach marketing ideas during a trip to Dover International Raceway. One year later, Dover poached Moses and sent him to Tennessee to reopen Nashville Superspeedway.
Moses, hired last August, will open the gates this weekend for a track that had sat dormant since Carl Edwards won the 21st and final Xfinity Series race of the 2011 season.
Better yet, Moses will host a sold-out crowd Sunday of roughly 40,000 spectators when NASCAR’s premier Cup Series makes its Nashville Superspeedway debut.
It will be a seminal moment for Dover Motorsports, which opened the concrete oval in 2001 seeking a coveted Cup race. After a decade of hosting only NASCAR’s minor leagues and eight IndyCar races, the company gave up trying for the big show.
“We did not build this track in 2001 to host simply Trucks and Xfinity. It was built for Cup,” Moses said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Why weren’t we able to attract a Cup race for 20 years, frankly I don’t know, and I don’t care. My job is to ensure that this runway we have now introduces this marketplace to the best drivers in America and turns this facility into a beloved institution.”