Here’s what NASCAR hopes is the honky tonk truth: that a Nashville reboot is good enough this time to make the sport a tough ticket in the heart of one of the entertainment hot spots of the South.
The first step? Convincing its star drivers the trip to Nashville Superspeedway in 2021 is the spark of a motorsports rebirth in the area – not just another lazy ride on an intermediate concrete track – and that the Superspeedway will prove a worthy choice over the historic half-mile Fairgrounds.
“One snooze fest at that joint will put the nail in the coffin of the fairgrounds, bummer,” Chase Elliott, NASCAR’s reigning most popular driver, wrote on Twitter.
There’s little sense now debating which track is worthy of the renovations and safety upgrades necessary to hold Cup Series races at least through 2024. Dover Motorsports, Inc. held on to the track it developed nearly 20 years ago – a potential $46 million sale in 2014 fell through – and kept it in its back pocket in case the time came when NASCAR wanted to expand its geographic schedule. There was little appetite among race fans for two NASCAR weekends at Dover International Speedway – noted by the Delaware track’s seating capacity of roughly 135,000 seats in 2001 stripped to about 55,000 this season – which cushioned the blow of moving the race to Nashville.
So it’s off to Music City, where NASCAR wants to hit the right notes.