{"id":120475,"date":"2025-08-05T09:07:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/120475\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T09:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:07:15","slug":"bristol-motor-speedway-now-must-prepare-to-host-nascar-after-the-mlb-speedway-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/120475\/","title":{"rendered":"Bristol Motor Speedway now must prepare to host NASCAR after the MLB Speedway Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 The instant the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Braves cleared the baseball diamond inside the infield at Bristol Motor Speedway<\/a>, a new clock started. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Last Great Colosseum\u201d has to switch from hosting the MLB Speedway Classic<\/a> and be ready for NASCAR\u2019s return to the historic racetrack hosting a playoff chase race Sept. 13. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as the last pitch is thrown, the last hit\u2019s hit, teams do their thing, postgame\u2019s taken care of, pads will start coming off the wall, and they\u2019ll work through the night to basically start disassembling so we can reassemble for the NASCAR race,\u201d said Steve Swift, Speedway Motorsports\u2019 senior vice president of operations.<\/p>\n

Major League Baseball used BaAM<\/a> to create everything from clubhouses for the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds complete with showers, strength and conditioning rooms, coach and trainers\u2019 offices and batting cages. Grandstands down both base lines with broadcast booths. <\/p>\n

Pit walls taken down to keep the Reds and Braves from crashing into them have to be rebuilt. Swift said pouring concrete walls does take time and then more time to cure properly. Additives can help concrete cure faster, but that\u2019s just one of the reconstruction issues causing obstacles. <\/p>\n

Swift said Bristol has had great partners planning for all the details of making this happen. Now it\u2019s time for Bristol Motor Speedway to go from hosting the first MLB regular-season game<\/a> in the state of Tennessee and setting a record with a paid attendance of 91,032 back to its racing roots.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is difficult, but it\u2019s things that we like,\u201d Swift said. \u201cIt gives us a challenge and we like challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The transformation to a baseball diamond in the infield required 17,500 tons of gravel to level the infield, then 340 tons of Pennsylvania clay for the playing surface.<\/p>\n

Braves first baseman Matt Olson said Saturday that he couldn\u2019t believe Bristol was transformed all for one game. Well, everything that can be recycled will be used somewhere after the baseball diamond is removed. <\/p>\n

Some of the gravel will be used in Bristol Motor Speedway\u2019s parking lots. Swift said they have found groups to help use some of the materials to help people still recovering from the damages left by Hurricane Helene. That includes 2x4s and plywood used for the grandstands. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of stuff is going to go to good use as far as the rebuild portion,\u201d Swift said. \u201cWe just need to get it out of the way so we can put back asphalt and concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n

This new renovation schedule has a couple of days built in for protection. The target date for being finished is Sept. 7. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere may still be some paint drying whenever they roll in with the Goodyear haulers, but we\u2019ll definitely shoot for that (Sept. 7) day,\u201d Swift said. \u201cAnd at the latest, we\u2019re looking at Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bristol hosted a college football game in 2016 that drew 156,990. Now the NHL might be in Bristol\u2019s future after Sportico reported Friday that league officials would be checking out how the racetrack handled Major League Baseball. <\/a><\/p>\n

When asked about possibly hosting an outdoor hockey game, Swift only said a hockey rink would be similar to a football field and that Speedway Motorsports has big dreams for what is possible at places like Bristol. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve shown with football and now baseball being here, that things can take place and we can do the the things that nobody would even think about,\u201d Swift said. <\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 The instant the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Braves cleared the baseball diamond inside the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":120476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1280,5218,4703,5048,37651,34545,1266,1822,5219,62,74906,1229,6066,67,132,68,18321,906],"class_list":{"0":"post-120475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-atlanta-braves","9":"tag-auto-racing","10":"tag-automobile-racing","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds","12":"tag-hurricane-helene","13":"tag-matt-olson","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-mlb-baseball","16":"tag-nascar-racing","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-steve-swift","19":"tag-tennessee","20":"tag-tn-state-wire","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-va-state-wire","25":"tag-virginia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114975371626811717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}