Congratulations Kyle Larson

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

On January 22, 1996, Larry Carrier sold the speedway to Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI), at a purchase price of $26 million. At the time of the sale, the facility seated 71,000. On May 28 of the same year, the track's name was officially changed to Bristol Motor Speedway. By August, 15,000 seats had been added bringing the seating capacity to 86,000.

BMS continued to grow and by April 1997, it was the largest sports arena in Tennessee--surpassing the University of Tennessee's 102,000 seat Neyland Stadium (college football)--and one of the largest in the country, seating 118,000. The speedway also boasted 22 new skyboxes. For the 1998 Goody's 500, the speedway featured more than 131,000 grandstand seats and 100 skyboxes. Improvements to the speedway since Smith took possession are in excess of $50 million. YUP. There is certainly a LOT of $$$$ involved that they are starting to lose with the big slips in attendance all across the USA the last 5 years. Don't have a clue if they care or what they can do short of continuing to price tickets higher and higher like all other sports. That is really not going to do a thing for the sports. Just stop the ownership losses as much as possible.

 

[BERLIN]

Through the first two stages it sure looked like either Truex or Elliott had the car to beat. Denny never really seemed to have a real shot. Larson's crew got the adjustments right and that last pit stop was off the charts amazing. I see a very bright future ahead for that team. Like the 24 and 48 teams of yore

Don

The 48 team switched to the number 5, transferring the number 48 to the 88 team.

 

[bbhero]

Yeah. NASCAR fans were REAL devoted once - "Race was postponed until the next day. On Monday it was still 75% full." WOW. No other sport.
My Uncle and family all lived within a few miles from the track at Bristol. They would tell me how tough it was to line up tickets a year in advance. Been two races a year there for ever... YET "The late summer race (the popular night-time race,) is considered "the toughest ticket in NASCAR" to obtain. So popular they expanded the seating areas for increased crowd sizes in the late 90s. My Uncle was friends with a farmer who owned a large piece of land just adjacent to the track. His story was that NASCAR tried to purchase this property almost every year for over 15 years. Last I heard he or his family would not sell. They told folks that each year for the two races they would open up and operate as a parking lot besides the track and pull in about $70,000! Kinda see why they won't sell the land. So the track that was so popular they had to add on thousands of seats that no longer are needed. Last race I watched there I noticed a large area of seats that were empty. Don't get me wrong. Not just picking on NASCAR. I blame ALL major pro sports in the USA for killing the golden goose. NFL / NBA / Baseball... they all lost track of what the fans mean to their totally obscene profit machines. They pay maniacal salaries to prima donna (some head cases) players in ranges so high they have no choice but to just keep going up up up on ticket prices. So now you have mostly older to middle age folks going in person and you have entire generations of American young who have no care or enthusiasm for the sports and rather play on the "smart phones!" That phone name to me is debatable. I bet you lose IQ points just like they used to tell us would happen with too much Tv viewing.

Not trying to give you a hard time here or be not picky. Just saying the following for what happened in the late 80s through 2000.

Bristol starting increasing seating capacity in the late 1980s....


Go watch the 1985 Busch 500 race.

Then watch say the 1992 Bristol spring race. Then the 1994 Bristol spring race. And keep watching later and later races.

It was a steady increase in seating capacity for a good while time before the late 90s.


The North Wilkesboro fall race in 1992 had about 80 percent plus of the fans come back the next day on Monday to watch that race.

Tracks being bought just to be shut down was a first sign Nascar was going off the rail....

Building stupid cookie cutter tracks at Las Vegas, Chicago, Kansas City and Texas was not the best idea either.

Charlotte motorspeedway was unique in it's layout when built. Having a 600 mile race was unique too. Watch the satellite feed World 600 race from 1979. Look at how many regular fans actually FILLED that infield. Then go watch a race at Charlotte say from 2006 or later... No longer see hardly any regular fans in that infield.

Charlotte was different at first then when Bruton Smith and Nascar got greedy.... Purchasing tracks to shut them down.... Then building race tracks exactly like Charlotte everywhere else like KC, Texas, Chicago and Las Vegas. Then Charlotte was certainly no longer unique anymore.

I think the people in NC eventually held the closures of Rockingham and North Wilkesboro against Nascar.... And rightfully so. Those races brought in a lot of much needed money to small towns like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro.

Nascar chose to walk away from small towns like those and sold itself out for much "bigger and better venues". They forgot what made it all possible... Small towns and real fans.

Before the 1980s Nascar had races at Spartanburg SC, Hampton Va, Savannah GA, and other small towns. After the schedule cut in 1973 I think it was the number of races went from 48 races to like 30 or 31 races a number of those small race tracks got left out. However Nascar still kept a number of short tracks in small towns in their schedule. Rockingham and North Wilkesboro and Darlington, Richmond, Bristol, Martinsville. Which was very smart.

I remember when there was talk of Nascar dropping races all together from Darlington.... And when Darlington lost its spring race I felt something was going wrong at that time.

What I had felt was that Nascar had forgotten where they came from... And who, what and where had actually built Nascar into what it had became.

 

[SammyChevelleTypeS3]

Not trying to give you a hard time here or be not picky. Just saying the following for what happened in the late 80s through 2000.

Bristol starting increasing seating capacity in the late 1980s....


Go watch the 1985 Busch 500 race.

Then watch say the 1992 Bristol spring race. Then the 1994 Bristol spring race. And keep watching later and later races.

It was a steady increase in seating capacity for a good while time before the late 90s.


The North Wilkesboro fall race in 1992 had about 80 percent plus of the fans come back the next day on Monday to watch that race.

Tracks being bought just to be shut down was a first sign Nascar was going off the rail....

Building stupid cookie cutter tracks at Las Vegas, Chicago, Kansas City and Texas was not the best idea either.

Charlotte motorspeedway was unique in it's layout when built. Having a 600 mile race was unique too. Watch the satellite feed World 600 race from 1979. Look at how many regular fans actually FILLED that infield. Then go watch a race at Charlotte say from 2006 or later... No longer see hardly any regular fans in that infield.

Charlotte was different at first then when Bruton Smith and Nascar got greedy.... Purchasing tracks to shut them down.... Then building race tracks exactly like Charlotte everywhere else like KC, Texas, Chicago and Las Vegas. Then Charlotte was certainly no longer unique anymore.

I think the people in NC eventually held the closures of Rockingham and North Wilkesboro against Nascar.... And rightfully so. Those races brought in a lot of much needed money to small towns like Rockingham and North Wilkesboro.

Nascar chose to walk away from small towns like those and sold itself out for much "bigger and better venues". They forgot what made it all possible... Small towns and real fans.

Before the 1980s Nascar had races at Spartanburg SC, Hampton Va, Savannah GA, and other small towns. After the schedule cut in 1973 I think it was the number of races went from 48 races to like 30 or 31 races a number of those small race tracks got left out. However Nascar still kept a number of short tracks in small towns in their schedule. Rockingham and North Wilkesboro and Darlington, Richmond, Bristol, Martinsville. Which was very smart.

I remember when there was talk of Nascar dropping races all together from Darlington.... And when Darlington lost its spring race I felt something was going wrong at that time.

What I had felt was that Nascar had forgotten where they came from... And who, what and where had actually built Nascar into what it had became.

You NOT giving me anything hard because I agree 100% with every word you typed? Did we got our comments mixed up or did I put my comments attached to a different point? I have to disagree that we disagree on anything. I tried to say similar to what you stated. NASCAR screwed its original loyal fans. I said "sports, they all lost track of what the fans meant" You point out "what tracks been lost and what that meant."
I said ....YET "The late summer race (the popular night-time race,) is considered "the toughest ticket in NASCAR" to obtain. So popular they expanded the seating areas for increased crowd sizes in the late 90s. I don't see what we disagree on? Your comment is more - detailed than what I wrote while thinking along the same lines as you are without naming each of the screwed up things NASCAR did to themselves by turning their back on those fans who made the sport. Its all good. Maybe I don't know how to write the words but I am with you.Maybe my hands are having a problem typing what the brain is thinking since I am not sleeping well this week.