NASCAR Drivers Confirm Bristol Motor Speedway Reduced By One Lane

Several NASCAR drivers got their first look at the reconfigured Bristol Motor Speedway on Tuesday during a Goodyear tire test, and what they discovered is exactly what track owner Bruton Smith hoped would happen.

Smith ordered his engineers to grind down the top lane of the track, and the drivers found it to be so slippery that Bristol has essentially been reduced from a three-groove track to two.

There was never a thought in Bruton Smith’s mind to leave Bristol Motor Speedway untouched.

After last month’s Food City 500, in which the stands were half-full at best, the Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman had no choice. He had to do something, even if not everyone agreed.

Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith is set to reveal planned changes to Bristol Motor Speedway today in an 11 a.m. ET news conference at the track.

Smith vowed to alter the track surface following a dud of a race last month in which the once-packed grandstands were only half full. After gathering fan input, the head of SMI – which owns tracks such as Texas, Atlanta and Sonoma in addition to Bristol – decided changes were necessary.

Bruton Smith, the Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman who isn’t afraid to spend money to make improvements to his track facilities, is changing the surface at Bristol Motor Speedway, he announced Wednesday.

Smith had requested fan input after the 160,000-seat grandstands were only half full at the Food City 500 two weeks ago, a dark moment for a track which once had 55 consecutive sellouts.

Greg Biffle and Kevin Harvick continued to occupy the top two spots in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings after Sunday’s Bristol race, but they have some new challengers.

Matt Kenseth’s runnerup finish moved him up two spots to third in the standings – he’s now 12 points behind teammate Biffle – and Martin Truex Jr’s third-place run vaulted him four positions to fourth.

An astute call to stay on the racetrack under caution gave Elliott Sadler the boost he needed to win his second NASCAR Nationwide Series race of the season, two weeks after he broke a 14-year drought at Phoenix.

The Nationwide Series points leader drove away from Kasey Kahne and Brad Keselowski after a restart on Lap 273 of 300 and beat Kahne to the finish line by 1.159 seconds to win Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

This has been a year of firsts for Danica Patrick.

Not only is this her first full year running the entire slate of Nationwide Series races, but she is also making her first trips to Darlington, Talladega and...Eldora?

NASCAR has added two pit road timing lines on each side of the track at Bristol to lessen the advantage of certain pit stalls.

Brad Keselowski raised eyebrows during his victory at the .533-mile track last August by accelerating rapidly from his pit stall and slowing suddenly as he approached the next time line. Since pit road speed is measured across areas separated by the timing lines, certain stalls located just beyond timing lines have been particularly advantageous.

Despite Tuesday’s appeals panel decision to uphold the initial NASCAR penalties levied against Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 team, driver Jimmie Johnson remains confident and optimistic his crew would be cleared of wrongdoing.

“I’m definitely disappointed in what happened last Tuesday,” Johnson said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “I have hope that this next appeal will be heard and we will have a different outcome. There is no telling how it is all going to shake out.”

The forecast this weekend is very challenging. The current weather pattern over east Tennessee is more like early summer than early spring. Each afternoon, there is a chance for pop-up showers and thunderstorms. This makes for a complicated weather forecast, because you know rain will form in the region – you just never know where.

I don’t see this weekend being a total wash, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a shower or two that could cause delays or wash out a practice or qualifying. There will be a lot of “nowcasting” this weekend, which mean there will be a lot of updates here and on Twitter as showers and storms form and move near or over the track.