Bristol Motor Speedway always turns out some great NASCAR racing, and NASCAR used to run on dirt back in the day- the last race in NASCAR on dirt was way back in 1970- so it's going to be incredibly cool when NASCAR goes dirt racing this weekend at Bristol!
Practice has been going on today. Tomorrow will be a full day of racing with four Truck Series qualifying races followed by four Cup Series qualifying races. The actual Truck Series race will run tomorrow night at 8pm eastern on FS1. The Cup race happens Sunday at 3:30 eastern on Fox.
But just how do the folks at Bristol get "The Last Great Coliseum" and it's concrete racing surface ready for a dirt race? Well, it's not an easy task. It started back in January when sawdust was laid on the track to act as a barrier between the concrete and the dirt. The World Of Outlaws ran on dirt at Bristol back in 2001 and that dirt has been stored ever since, so the next step was bringing that dirt back to the track as a base layer. The second layer of dirt came from just down the road from Bristol Motor Speedway and the third layer came from Bluff City, TN, about ten minutes away from the speedway. In all, 2300 truckloads of dirt were brought in, which equals about 23,000 cubic yards. The corners were built to 19 degrees and the front and backstretch are 6.
And that's the simplified version!
Here's a really cool video that goes a little more behind the scenes as to how crews got the track ready for this weekend's racing. IT'S BRISTOL DIRT BABY!!!