Why doesn’t someone build an old Bristol

C

CalTenn

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The place sold out 2 races a year for 30 years, seats are are being removed from venues. Obviously people like the short track with a good bump and run race.
 
It would be really cool but new tracks aren't really being built anymore.

If they were, I would like to see a Rockingham clone above all else.
 
2 Sweet said:
It would be really cool but new tracks aren't really being built anymore.

If they were, I would like to see a Rockingham clone above all else.
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A Rockingham clone wouldn't work the same because unless you can create the unique weathering conditions around the rock you won't get the same result
 
aunty dive said:
Why?

Because it would cost more than $300 million, Alice.
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How much money has Smith lost since he changed the track, how much did it cost him to change the track and then change the track again. For some people 300,000,000 is a write off.
Alice
 
When Kansas Speedway was initially built with about 80,000 seats, for several years there was a waiting list for the mandatory season ticket packages that were sold. I knew people who wanted tickets and couldn't get them. Popularity wasn't confined to Bristol.

When Bristol first changed to a progressive banking layout, it was the best racing the facility ever produced. They kinda messed it up trying to change it back. Popularity and quality have nothing to do with each other. They are closer to being inversely proportional. But really, it is all based on marketing and image and has nothing to do with the racing.
 
The last 2 tracks I can think of Iowa and Kentucky. Both ended up being sold for a fraction of the cost it took to build them. It will be interesting to see the road coarse deal at Charlotte
 
Did old bristol hotels charge $300-$400+ a night for lodging?
 
"If you build it they will come" no longer applies to race tracks( outside of ISC/SMI) , there are a few reasons why no one has yet.
1. Money, its not cheap to build a race track, no one is going to build a old Bristol without an agreement with NASCAR to place the new old Bristol on the schedule for the top three series.
2. See #1. with out that happening, the track doesnt make back the money to cover the investment in an acceptable amount of time.

So really, the only way we would ever see a new old Bristol( not in our life time) is if this project was something NASCAR or its partners wanted to happen.
 
When we think of the old short track racing and how popular it was, you have to also consider the cars that were raced. Square boxes with ram bumpers at both ends. Them days were all about the racer and could he keep the car running to the end. Many cars would have mechanical breakdowns or lose the motor. Also in those days a team would have cars built special for specific tracks that would be mothballed waiting for next year.
Today we have cars designed for high speed and downforce. Both ends of the car are as delicate as a glass vase. They do have endurance, we seldom see a motor failure except from a back marker team. The biggest damage during a race today comes from a tire failure. The cars are designed to play follow the leader on long straight away tracks.
If you want to go back in time to watch good racing, your better off watching YouTube for free than buying a ticket to any race.
Unless Nascar lets teams build short track cars, you can forget the glory days.
 
Actually I agree somewhat with the OP except I'd like Smith to tear up the current track at Bristol and put it back like it used to be, its expensive but not like building a new one.
 
CalTenn said:
How much money has Smith lost since he changed the track, how much did it cost him to change the track and then change the track again. For some people 300,000,000 is a write off.
Alice
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Nobody gets to the point of having $300,000,000 to spend by wasting it. A write off is still a loss of money, there is no magic math that makes losing money a positive .
It'd be nice if someone was willing to lose that much money just so we could relive the old days but finding that someone will be arduous .
 
There clearly isn't a big enough market for it or else it would have happened
 
aunty dive said:
Why?

Because it would cost more than $300 million, Alice.
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Even it it was built, there's no guarantee of getting a race date. Look how long it took Kentucky to get a Cup date, and that was only after SMI bought it and moved a date to it. Neither SMI nor ISC are going to buy or build another track when they're having attendance issues at most of their existing facilites.
 
gnomesayin said:
When Kansas Speedway was initially built with about 80,000 seats, for several years there was a waiting list for the mandatory season ticket packages that were sold. I knew people who wanted tickets and couldn't get them. Popularity wasn't confined to Bristol.

When Bristol first changed to a progressive banking layout, it was the best racing the facility ever produced. They kinda messed it up trying to change it back. Popularity and quality have nothing to do with each other. They are closer to being inversely proportional. But really, it is all based on marketing and image and has nothing to do with the racing.
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Good points. The racing itself at Bristol is better than it used to be. But it's obvious the fans came for the bumping and potential fighting instead of the racing.
 
Spotter22 said:
Actually I agree somewhat with the OP except I'd like Smith to tear up the current track at Bristol and put it back like it used to be, its expensive but not like building a new one.
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Didn't Bruton say he would put the track back if fans didn't like the new configuration? He's yet to do that, instead monkeying around with the the surface by grinding the top and putting sticky stuff on the bottom.
 
MRM said:
Good points. The racing itself at Bristol is better than it used to be. But it's obvious the fans came for the bumping and potential fighting instead of the racing.
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And as the teams and drivers have further professionalized, that bumping has gone away.

To blame the racing entirely is not the issue however. Part of the blame lies on the lack of personalities that draw people to buy a ticket. NASCAR moreso than Indycar or F1 in comparison have always been more personality-driven with its fanbase. Those personalities of Gordon, Junior, Stewart, Edwards to a much lesser extent, all left around the same time and have not been replaced. (NASCAR was so lucky when Dale Earnhardt died that his son was already a Cup driver.) So those drivers' fanbases are where? Some still come, some have migrated to other drivers, some have quit following the sport. There's no such thing as a "fan census" to measure these things unfortunately.
 
I was looking on Bristol's web site for some information on the patio level seating they have installed in turns 1 and 2 down low. I stumbled across the ticket prices for the night race. Good grief. No wonder they can't draw a crowd. The front stretch tickets are $145 and that's not the terrace seats up top. And the middle three sections at the start/finish line are $160. Tickets in the turns on either end are $120. That, combined with the gouging on hotel rooms, is no wonder attendance is down so much.
 
MRM said:
I was looking on Bristol's web site for some information on the patio level seating they have installed in turns 1 and 2 down low. I stumbled across the ticket prices for the night race. Good grief. No wonder they can't draw a crowd. The front stretch tickets are $145 and that's not the terrace seats up top. And the middle three sections at the start/finish line are $160. Tickets in the turns on either end are $120. That, combined with the gouging on hotel rooms, is no wonder attendance is down so much.
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We went to the Bristol night race a few years back because we scored free hot passes. Didn't buy any tickets. We watched the first half of the race from the infield and found empty seats in the grandstands for the second half of the race. I spent almost $400 for one night at a freakin' Super 8 motel (and it was over 30 minutes from the track) so I certainly didn't feel bad about getting into the race for free.

Good tickets at Martinsville are about half as much, and hotels are a third of the price and much closer to the track. Bristol is awesome don't get me wrong, but it's not exactly light on the wallet.
 
MRM said:
I was looking on Bristol's web site for some information on the patio level seating they have installed in turns 1 and 2 down low. I stumbled across the ticket prices for the night race. Good grief. No wonder they can't draw a crowd. The front stretch tickets are $145 and that's not the terrace seats up top. And the middle three sections at the start/finish line are $160. Tickets in the turns on either end are $120. That, combined with the gouging on hotel rooms, is no wonder attendance is down so much.
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Tickets all around that track for 85-90 bucks.
 
gnomesayin said:
Good one. I have some fond memories of I-70 from childhood. Here's what it looks like now.



SAFER walls and maybe a couple other upgrades needed.
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Man, that's crazy - doesn't seem like all that long ago that I was sitting in those stands a few times a year. I hate to see it in that shape.
 
CalTenn said:
How much money has Smith lost since he changed the track, how much did it cost him to change the track and then change the track again. For some people 300,000,000 is a write off.
Alice
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Speedway Motorsports entire corporate market cap is about $730M. So a $300M project would be roughly 40% of the company’s total value - that’s a huge project.

Any project like that would certainly require lending and a compelling business case to justify it. The projections on profitability would have to be grounded in current data that could pass audit - “because Bristol used to be awesome” isn’t going to cut it. I don’t know if the case could be made but I think it’s tough in today’s Nascar environment.

Plus, with potential Nascar sale and possible schedule reduction under new leadership, it just seems like a really unpredictable time to be building a new racetrack.
 
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Mrs. Miler and I are going to Bristol in a week and a half for our first trip.Kind of excited. Staying a hour away in Wytheville, Va. at $275.00 a night(Thank you Habib). Parking at Roger's Garden Campground, directly across from the main entrance, $200.00. Driving from Rhode Island, $$$$$. The $$$ doesn't matter, because , It's Bristol Baby !!
 
MAGICMILER said:
Mrs. Miler and I are going to Bristol in a week and a half for our first trip.Kind of excited. Staying a hour away in Wytheville, Va. at $275.00 a night(Thank you Habib). Parking at Roger's Garden Campground, directly across from the main entrance, $200.00. Driving from Rhode Island, $$$$$. The $$$ doesn't matter, because , It's Bristol Baby !!
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