The second attempt at holding NASCAR races on dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway was a success on two measurable fronts.
Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race, held on Easter, earned an average of 4.007 million viewers. That was the highest average for any Bristol race since spring 2016.
On Thursday, Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith told SPEED SPORT that ticket sales for the event were up “almost 20%” compared to the inaugural event in 2021. That race was held with crowd limits due to the pandemic, but even the available general admission seating sold out.
Those numbers meant it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Bristol announced Tuesday the 2023 spring weekend would again see the return of dirt to the half-mile track.
2023 brings another dirt night race!
— Bristol Motor Speedway (@BMSupdates) April 19, 2022
More Info: https://t.co/LeEkG8vxqH#ItsBristolBaby #ItsDirtBaby #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/bfQA6EAQow
“It really exceeded expectations,” Smith told SPEED SPORT. “Following from last year, we were following up an inaugural dirt race. An inaugural event always sells really well. And we’re also following a rain weekend, which usually is really hard on (ticket) renewals and usually results in lower sales the following years. We were up almost 20% in ticket ales, which is great. Thankfully, the Lord blessed us with great weather. We did have a little bit of rain on Sunday, but we got the race in. Ironically, I don’t think we would have gotten the race in had the track been concrete because it was sprinkling most of the evening. But because the track was dirt, it was the right amount to keep the dust down and the track was really good. And everybody at home seemed to really enjoy being able to tune into NASCAR after the Easter day.”
After the end of the second stage Sunday, an extended red flag for rain kept the possibility of the race reaching its natural conclusion in doubt.
How nervous was Smith as they waited out the weather?
“Oh yeah, I was definitely nervous. ‘We’re in trouble,'” Smith said with a laugh. “I give a lot of credit to NASCAR for persevering. I was in the control tower a few times during the night just listening in and the whole crew our track prep team, led by Steve Swift and the NASCAR officials, Steve O’Donnell was in the control tower. Everybody was really on their A-game, doing a great job and pushed through and persevered. And I think the fans were rewarded with a phenomenal race and phenomenal finish.”
Sunday’s race was the first time the NASCAR Cup Series had held an event on Easter Sunday since 1989, when it was forced to as a result of snow postponing a race.
Smith said that a large Easter celebration held before the race was “really essential” to Speedway Motorsports “agreeing to move forward with the Easter weekend” race.
“I think over 10,000 people watched live at the event (the Easter celebration),” Smith said. “It was really impressive. The team at Bristol … They did a great job putting our best foot forward.”
The Bristol dirt experiment has been just the latest bold move by Speedway Motorsports in the last five years to shakeup its portion of the NASCAR schedule. Since 2018, the company has converted the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway into a road course event, converted Atlanta Motor Speedway into a 1.5-mile superspeedway, bought Dover Motor Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway and moved one of its races to Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas.
Including Bristol Dirt, what does Smith view as the riskiest move his company has made?
The 49-year-old had to take a moment to think about it.
“I don’t know,” Smith answered. “We’re in a business of taking risks. We’re in the entertainment business. We’re in the memory making business. Our business can be dangerous and expensive. Not investing and not innovating is just not an option for our business. I think we we generally are not very risk adverse. We like to do things differently and exceptionally. … all these things are big risks. Thankfully, they’re working. So that kind of gives us more energy to do more things that are different, new and special. Glad a lot of people seem to like these new things.”
Smith will quickly get to experience something new for him.
Next weekend will be his first time attending a race at Dover Motor Speedway as its owner, after SMI bought Dover Motorsports in late 2021.
“We really didn’t have a lot of time to do any development there,” Smith said. “And our focus was on some other things that we’ve got in process. Texas, we’ve got a huge renovation happening there. Sonoma, we’ve got a big project that’ll be complete for the race coming up in June. A lot of our time and money’s been tied up in those projects.
“But we’re definitely looking at all sorts of different projects for next year. I don’t know what’s going to make the list, we usually end up with a wish list that’s really long, and we hone it down to the top priority. We always want to make things better and improve for our fans and all of our constituents. We’ll see what happens there at Dover and all the speedways. But we’ve had a lot of competing interests for the dollars that we invest back into into the speedway.”
What’s on the preliminary wish list for the 53-year-old track?
“One of the biggest things that we’ve done with success in Texas and Bristol and Atlanta are our new open air 360 bars which really provide a really unique and modern style experience for fans coming to the NASCAR races,” Smith said. “I’m looking forward to being at Dover … once we get up there and see things in action, I’ll have a better idea. But I think that open air 360 bar is a really great concept that we’re going to continue to implement at our speedway’s and see how that might come into play at Dover. Without seeing the speedway in action and really looking at it with development in mind, I don’t have a good answer for you beyond that.”