NASCAR is Heading Back to Nashville Starting Next Year

It was announced today that NASCAR is putting Nashville Superspeedway in the Cup Series rotation starting next year. There were a lot of rumors in the last few months regarding Nashville’s return to NASCAR and it will mark the first time since 2011 that there have been any NASCAR sanctioned events at the track. Instead of having 2 events at Dover, there will only be one Dover race next year to make room for Nashville.

The track is called Nashville Superspeedway, but is only a 1 and 1/3 mile oval located in Gladesville, TN and is roughly a 30-minute drive from Nashville. The Xfinity Series started holding races there in 2001 and held one race that year, but from 2002-11, they held two annual races. The Camping Truck Series had an annual race there in the same span of time. The most dominant Xfinity driver at the track was Carl Edwards. Saying he was the most dominant may be an understatement. He collected 5 wins and 12 Top 10s, 11 of which were Top 5s. He did all of this in a span of 13 races with an average finish of 3.5. Other dominant drivers were Clint Bowyer racking up a win and 9 Top 5s in 9 races (avg finish of 2.8) and Kevin Harvick with an average finish of 3.0.

Although Carl Edwards is no longer driving, I think we can expect to see Harvick and Bowyer in the Cup Series next year, so their experience could be an advantage. Above is the last race that the Xfinity Series ever ran in Nashville and below I am going to put the 2008 IndyCar race, because they raced there as well and this happened to be the last IndyCar event at the track. The speed record for the track is actually set by Scott Dixon at 206.2 MPH.

Although this track doesn’t have a ton of history attached to it, NASCAR in Nashville certainly does. From 1958-84, the Cup Series ran at the Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville and it comes as no surprise that Richard Petty is the winningest driver at that track with 9 wins. Darrell Waltrip was a close second with 8 wins.

This is an exciting announcement because we haven’t seen the Cup Series ever race here and I think there is potential for a lot of good racing at a track like this. Next year, the current build for the Cup Series is going to be the same as this year’s, but in 2022 the next generation of cars will debut and it should make tracks like these even more interesting for fans and drivers. Although the circumstances are different, this could open up opportunities for classic NASCAR tracks to make a comeback. I know it’s basically a pipe dream at this point, but a lot of fans want to see racing at North Wilkesboro again. There are many other tracks as well, but hopefully this could be a sign that the ball is rolling towards NASCAR capitalizing on nostalgia.

Yacs

Yacs, Sports, NASCARYacsJune 3, 2020NASCAR, Nashville, Nashville Superspeedway, SportsComment