Bristol Motor Speedway transforms into record-breaking college football stadium

Typically Bristol Motor Speedway’s August NASCAR weekend concludes racing for the year at the popular high-banked, half-mile track located in the northeast corner of Tennessee teetering on the Virginia border.

This year brings an exception. When the checkered flag waves on the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race on Saturday, another race immediately begins to prepare the venue for a college football game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and Tennessee Volunteers on Sept. 10 at Bristol.

A mere 21 days separate the two events. The longstanding NASCAR track will transform into a football stadium expected to draw a record crowd in excess of 150,000, smashing the previous mark of 115,109 spectators that watched Notre Dame play Michigan at “The Big House” in September 2013.

The idea of Tennessee playing Virginia at Bristol is one “20 years in the making,” BMS general manager Jerry Caldwell told SB Nation in a phone interview. But though regular attempts were made through the years to secure the game between the two universities, which are both roughly 120 miles from the track, various hurdles prevented a deal from ever being completed. The game was officially announced in October 2013.

“If you’re in this area and drive around Bristol, either on the Virginia side or the Tennessee side, every other car you’re going to pass will have a T or a VT [sticker] on the back,” Caldwell said. “It was just natural to have them playing here.”

Staging stick-and-ball sporting events at race tracks is not a novel concept, except never has a motor sports complex hosted a game of this magnitude. The unprecedented nature means Bristol is not following a tried-and-true blueprint on how to turn around a venue designed for stock cars into a place befitting two major football programs.

Preparations began in earnest when the game was formalized, including the removal of the scoring pylon and videoboard positioned atop following last August’s race. That necessitated the construction of Colossus.

Appropriately named, Colossus is a four-sided video board weighing nearly 700 tons. It is suspended from cables above the speedway, anchored to four steel supports towers situated outside the track. Its four hi-definition screens are each 30 feet tall by 63 feet wide.

However, because Bristol hosts two NASCAR weekends annually (the other is held in the spring) a significant portion of the overhaul cannot begin until Saturday night’s Sprint Cup race wraps.

Once the NASCAR team haulers exit, a cleanup crew of almost 400 will immediately descend upon the track. Grandstands are also to be erected on the frontstretch (Virginia Tech’s side), backstretch (Tennessee’s side) and each end zone, along with the essential restrooms and concession stands needed to accommodate the anticipated throng.

Each school was allotted approximately 40,000 tickets. The other 70,000 tickets made available to the public have sold out.

The most complicated project on the docket over the next three weeks is the construction of the Astroturf playing field in the center of Bristol’s infield. That task is made more arduous because race tracks and football fields have diametrically opposite drainage systems.

Tracks slope in the middle, whereas football fields have water drain toward the edges of the field. To overcome Bristol’s 3 foot dip will require 450 truckloads of rock and sand, which combine to weigh more than 10,000 tons.

That Bristol is a facility with seating for 160,000 race fans and the infrastructure already in place to handle a major sporting event has been instrumental.

“I’ve jokingly said for years, we’re a football stadium on steroids,” Caldwell said. “Now we get to show it.”

For locker rooms, Tennessee will occupy the driver’s meeting room. Virginia Tech has been assigned the same building Goodyear uses for its tires. Booths for coaches and replay officials are in repurposed suites, and the area NASCAR officials take residence in on race weekends.

For small things like where play clocks should be stationed on the field and other operational aspects, Caldwell has been working “hand-in-hand” with Tennessee, the designated home team for the game. Each school will come in and paint its respective end zone to match its normal design.

Bristol is working on a tight schedule calling for everything to be completed two days prior. In many respects, Caldwell said, it’s no different than a NASCAR weekend where there are hard deadlines on when projects must be finished.

Whether Bristol hosts another marquee football game beyond next month’s tilt is still to be determined, though Caldwell expressed enthusiasm that it could evolve into a semi-regular occurrence. A second game between two smaller colleges (Eastern Tennessee St. vs. Western Carolina) is slated for a week later.

“We are unique here at Bristol, as there are very few other tracks that could pull something like this off,” he said. “Especially in the way we’re going to do it, being as small a track as we are and completely bowled in.”

So with all the sweeping renovations, will those in attendance feel as if they’re at a NASCAR track, Neyland Stadium (Tennessee) or Lane Stadium (Virginia Tech)?

“We’re going to do something to help them remember,” Caldwell said. “You will still know you’re at a race track. And also, it will feel very much like a football stadium.”