Bristol!

BRISTOL!

Thunder Valley

Did you know that the fans at Bristol a couple of years back made the Guinness World Record Book?

In August of 2008 the crowd made the biggest stadium wave in history… I’m not really a big fan of the wave (old fuddy-dutty as my daughter would say), but this is BIG… WOW!!! lol

Then, one year later they did made the world record book again when the whole crowd sang Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places”. The first time 168,000 people all sang together… Man, I tried to find a video of this but YouTube struck out.

So, listen up to the genuine article while following along…

Tucked into the beautiful, quiet hills of northeast Tennessee you’ll find an oval racetrack. Two weekends of the year the sleepy town of Bristol Tennessee (population 40,000 people) where this track is located swells to become larger than Tennessee’s third largest city!

This is Bristol Motor Speedway…

.533 miles around a graduated slope banked concrete track completely surrounded by 168,000 screaming fans, the roar of the engines is almost drowned out by the crowd. Forty-three drivers running at over 100 miles per hour with one thing in mind… Win!

What makes Bristol unique, beyond the stadium seating and capacity, is the graduated banking and the need to have two pit roads.

The banking on the infield side of the track starts off around 6 degrees and graduates up to almost 30 degrees at the top of the turns. This keeps fast cars on the high line forcing anyone wanting to pass on a slower low line fighting centrifugal forces that act to push the car back up the track. This certainly makes for interesting situations when drivers go two or three wide pushing the speed envelope while trying to pass.

The two pit roads made a special rule necessary for fairness so we’ll see all cars headed to the pits under cautions have to enter on turn two, make a complete circumference on pit lane and then pull into their pit. Upon leaving, everyone exits on turn one. Pay attention to how this works…

One consideration the fans don't really think about is the volume level inside this big bowl as it concerns the racing teams. They actually have to resort to using hand signals to communicate among themselves. They just can't hear! Watch for any trackside announcers as they try to speak over the noise...

Here are the track records the drivers are interested in:
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Records
(As of 7/1/10)
Most Wins----------12-----Darrell Waltrip
Most Top 5s-------- 26-----Darrell Waltrip, Richard Petty
Most Top 10s------ 37-----Richard Petty
Starts ----------------60-----Richard Petty
Poles -----------------9-----Mark Martin, Cale Yarborough
Most Lps Cmpltd-25036-Terry Labonte
Most Laps Led----4305---Cale Yarborough
Avg. Start*---------3.2-----Fred Lorenzen
Avg. Finish---------8.6-----Benny Parsons

So… Are you ready for some racin’? Remember this one?


Finally, (For the fun of it!)… It’s Thunder Valley and The Thunder Rolls…