SMI chairman Bruton Smith hopes track grinding will transform Bristol

SMI chairman Bruton Smith hopes track grinding will transform Bristol

April 25, 2012

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

As promised, Bristol Motor Speedway is getting a facelift -- or perhaps more accurately, a close shave -- in hopes of persuading fans to return to the 160,000-seat, .533-mile Taj Mahal of short track racing.

Bruton Smith, chairman of Speedway Motorsports Inc., the parent company that owns Bristol and seven other Sprint Cup racetracks, announced Wednesday at the speedway that, by the time the Cup series returns for the Aug. 25 Irwin Tools Night Race, the variable banking incorporated during a 2007 resurfacing of the track will be gone.

A half-empty grandstand greeted the Cup series for the fourth race of the season in March, prompting Smith announce immediately that he would make changes to the track based on feedback from fans.

The 2007 project created two distinct racing grooves, allowing cars to race side-by-side around the entire oval. Facilitating that was variable banking, whereby the track steepens as it approaches the outside wall.

The project announced Wednesday will grind away the variable banking in the outside groove, in effect narrowing the concrete track and forcing cars to run closer together -- thus promoting the sort of close-quarters action and contact between cars that defined racing at Bristol before the most recent changes to the track.

"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," Smith said in announcing the project. "So that is the focus of our efforts, and that is what we are working to change."

In deciding to alter the track, Smith is walking a tightrope between fan sentiment and the feelings of the Cup drivers, many of whom prefer the racing under the current configuration to the beat-and-bang roughhouse racing of the past. Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's Vice President of Competition said the sanctioning body backed Smith's decision and that it would continue to monitor the construction.

"NASCAR is supportive of race tracks when it comes to their decisions to try to do what they think is in the best interests of their venue," Pemberton said. "Bristol Motor Speedway and its management let us know following their race last month that they wanted to make some changes to their track before their second date in August. We will continue to be in close communications with them over the next several months and stay apprised of the work that is being done."

Smith also said he would ask Goodyear to provide a softer tire at Bristol, but that request may be premature. Goodyear has scheduled a tire test at the track for June 12-13 to see what changes to the Bristol tire may or may not be justified.

"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."

Though the intent of the track changes is clear enough, there are plenty of questions that won't be answered until August or, for that matter, until next year's spring race.

Will the grinding have the desired effect on the racing? If so, will fans return in sufficient numbers?

Or are fans making value decisions that have more to do with the flagging economy, the high price of gas and the exorbitant cost of hotel rooms during race weeks at Bristol?

By next year, we'll have a much better idea as to which of the variables play the most significant roles.