Nashville's Field of Broken Dreams

Dave Fulton
@dave-fulton
12 years ago
9,137 posts

Forlorn Forecast for Nashvilles Field of Broken Dreams

Larry Woody | Senior Writer, RacinToday.com Wednesday, 16 January 2013

GLADEVILLE, Tenn. Dover Motorsports president and CEO Denis McGlynn says there is no change in the status of Nashville Superspeedway, which means the track is destined for another season of silence.

The track, located 35 miles from Nashville, stopped racing following the 2011 season. Attendance never robust had withered away for NASCARs Camping World Series truck races and Nationwide Series races. The IndyCar Series bailed out in 2008.

Dover officials say all options are open, including the sale of the track. So far there have been no takers.

Its a hard sale, given the state of the economy, says Gary Baker who at one time operated Fairgrounds Speedway, owned Bristol Motor Speedway, and had a piece of Atlanta Motor Speedway.

A racetrack especially one with a history of poor attendance is not exactly a hot commodity.

The Superspeedway opened with high hopes and fanfare in 2001, but warning lights immediately flickered when the inaugural Nationwide race failed to sell out. Dover dismantled approximately 10,000 temporary seats, reducing capacity to about 40,000. But even then the grandstands yawned.

After a decade of declining attendance Dover pulled the plug following the 2011 season.

Whose fault was it? Nobodys, says Terrell Davis, host of a local radio racing show who broke the story about Dovers move here. Dover built a first-class facility, worked hard to make it a success, and it didnt work out. There are a lot of theories about why, including a rotten economy and running minor-league races in a major-league market. But its not Dovers fault. Nobodys wanted the track to succeed more than they did.

The question is, what now?

Last year the Superspeedway was occasionally leased to some NASCAR teams for testing. But that revenue flow was a trickle, compared to Dovers multi-million-dollar investment and outstanding debt obligations.

Baker believes the facility could be used as an R&D site for the various auto manufacturers in the area. But as for racing, the prospects remain dismal.

Part of the problem is the design of the track, Baker says. Dover tried to build a track that would accommodate open-wheel racing and stock car racing, and ended up with a track that wasnt particularly good for either.

Baker says if he had the track the first thing he would do is re-design it a daunting investment on top of what Dover has already sunk into the project.

It would be extremely difficult, Baker says. When I talk about how the economy has rocked racing, I speak from experience.

Baker last year was forced to close the Nashville-based Baker Curb Racing team he founded with partner Mike Curb. The team lost its sponsor, couldnt land another, and was forced to shut down.

Meanwhile Bakers old track, Fairgrounds Speedway, wobbles along on fumes and prayers. Promoter Tony Formosa Jr. plans to run a handful of local-division races at the city-owned facility this season. Thats a somber shadow of the tracks glory days when Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, Bill Elliott, Darrell Waltrip and other legends raced there.

That golden era ended in 1984 when Fairgrounds Speedway lost its two annual Winston Cup races. It has no chance of ever getting them back. The track is too old, too small, too land-locked, too ham-strung by mismanagement to ever again host big-league races.

The areas racing future was pinned squarely on the Superspeedway. It would run IndyCar races and second- and third-tier NASCAR races while Dover lobbied for a magical Cup race somewhere down the road.

But fans failed to support NASCARs minor league races, the Cup hopes never materialized, Indy bailed out, and gradually the turnstiles rusted. And so it sits.

Meadowlarks whistle forlornly in the weedy infield and the wind moans through vacant grandstands a Field of Broken Dreams. They built it, and nobody came.

Larry Woody can be reached at lwoody@racintoday.com




--
"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"

updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:04:08PM
Dave Fulton
@dave-fulton
12 years ago
9,137 posts

As you point out filling the seats with fannies always helps.




--
"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
TMC Chase
@tmc-chase
12 years ago
4,073 posts

I went to one Busch race and one IRL qualifying event at the big track. That's it. Many around Nashville and outside of it asked me why I didn't support it more. WHY?? I generally got pretty defensive about being questioned about it. I've traveled to Daytona, Talladega, and other southern tracks. I've flown to see races in Loudon, Texas, and Vegas. Why? Because I expected a fun trip and entertaining race with friends.

Racing at the Nashville track was boring, and I simply chose to spend my time and money elsewhere. Dover made a business decision as all companies do, and it simply didn't pan out for them. The big risk didn't return a big reward. Board rooms wrestle it all the time. It wasn't a charity or a "home town" team. Just because I am a racing fan didn't obligate me to attend races there, and I've always resented any in the media who insinuated otherwise. I enjoy Titans football and Predators hockey games, but I don't go to all their games. As a matter of fact, I can count on two hands the number of Titans games I've attended since they moved here in 1998.

Had Dover and GM Cliff Hawks created a more exciting track and promoted the races better, who knows. I do agree they were paddling upstream by only having Busch/Nationwide and IRL events. Nashville wasn't / isn't the only track struggling to draw large crowds to those types of standalone events.

Another reason - though maybe related to my comment about Cliff - was the tone of insulting promotional arrogance towards the middle TN racing fan base. The track routinely tried to make us think they were all but running "Cup Lite" out there by bringing in Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, and Kevin Harvick. I know the difference between Cup and NW/Busch - and I wasn't going to pay top dollar for the latter.

I am sorry the track is gone as the loss of any track isn't fun. Folks lost jobs, Nashville got labeled again, Dover's investors took it in the shorts - again, and the Wilson County and State of Tennessee taxpayers are still likely edgy not knowing if Dover will indeed fully service all the bonds issued to build the place.




--
Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.
Bobby Williamson
@bobby-williamson
12 years ago
907 posts

There's lots of reasons, no doubt, but a couple stand above the crowd. Open-wheel Indy car racing just a'int the hottest thing in town. If it wasn't for the history and tradition of the Indy 500 the entire subject would be on the skids.........and there's a ton of reasons for that bit of reality, too. But, even more glaring, is that the Nashville Super Speedway attempted to operate in a market that had allowed (and continues to allow) its feeder system to wallow in a near-death state. It's tough to have the top of the food chain without (also) having the bottom.