Going to Bristol last August, hugely changed my perspective of that track and why fans love the Bristol Motor Speedway so much. Bristol isn’t just a race track, it’s a community. A community of fans and staff who love racing just as much as the fans do that travel from all over the world to the World’s Fastest Half Mile. Bristol doesn’t feature your typical track experience, it’s much more. After going to Bristol, I will forever watch the races at the track differently in the best way possible. Everyone will return home to the Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend.
Bristol is not just located in the Tennessee Hills, its located ON a Tennessee hill. Going to tracks like Daytona you can just walk on the flat pavement to the track. When you go to Bristol, you have to walk up a hill to get to the track. Not just a little hill but, a pretty big hill that has a pretty steep slope. The hill Bristol is on makes that track unique and it makes the Bristol experience even cooler. What other sporting venues can you say you had to walk up a hill to actually get to the venue? None come to mind for me and that makes Bristol one special place.
All NASCAR tracks are special because they usually are in the coolest towns in the U.S. Bristol, Tennessee (and Virginia) is one of the nicest and best racing-environments in the country. The people who live in the town are extremely kind and they love their racing. Walking into a restaurant along State Street in Bristol made me feel like I was at home. There was no indication whatsoever that made me feel like a visitor, I felt like one of the locals. That feeling is one of the best feelings in the world. Bristol made me feel like I was at home and never before have I felt like that at a race track.
NASCAR fans are the greatest in sports and time and time again is that statement reiterated. No one in the grandstands at Bristol was a stranger. Everyone talked with each other and no one was afraid to walk up to someone and talk racin’. The environment that that creates is unbeatable and only one place in the world can you find it, at the race track. Bristol is no different and the fan environment there could even be considered the best in NASCAR. Getting to talk with everyone about racing makes you feel at home. Feeling at home was special for me since I was far from home, close to 800 miles away. Bristol by far brings in the best fans in NASCAR and that creates some pretty special things in the small-town of Bristol, Tennessee.
Bristol is such a special place and everything about that track and town makes it that way. After going to Bristol, I will never be able to watch a race there the same way. While watching the race, I will be thinking outside the track. Thinking about the amazing town that the track is located in as well as thinking about all of the incredible memories I made at my home away from home last August. While NASCAR returns to the Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, I will not be there but, my heart will surely be there and it will relive the most amazing race weekend I have ever experienced. NASCAR will be going home to Bristol this weekend and everyone there will surely feel at home due to the amazing job the town of Bristol does on putting on a great fan experience. The banner Bristol hangs at the track surely is the most correct thing I have ever read, it reads “Welcome Home.”
