Changes announced for my second home...

The fans have spoken, and Bruton Smith has answered.

Bristol Motor Speedway used to be just one step better than a demolition derby.  I described it to friends as “put 43 cars in a blender and hit puree.” After the surface change in 2007, this was not the case.

Bristol became a follow the leader track, but with more than one racing groove.  This is improvement, yes?  I thought so, but I was in the distinct minority.  I was able to actually watch them race instead of stopping to clean up the track and pick up the pieces every 50 laps or so.

And who am I?  A Bristol season ticket holder for the past 10 years.

The stands were empty for the March 2012 Bristol race, and Bruton wasn’t having that.  Smith said that he is not a fan of the progressive banking either and he is changing it.

The plan to update Bristol Motor Speedway involved taking out some of the progressive banking.  They are changing the entry into the corner and taking away the advantage of the top groove.  This should change the track to 2 lanes instead of the 3-wide racing of the past few years.

Bristol Motor Speedway is also planning on adding 7,000 more seats.  Ummmm, where?  And why?  They aren’t selling what’s there, so let’s add more?  This doesn’t make a bit of sense to me.

Remember, kids, this is now "just a racing deal" again. No complaining!

The Spring race was only ever a sellout because they used to sell the tickets as a package.  In order to get the much coveted August Night Race tickets, you needed to buy the March tickets as well.  The August race is usually a sell-out, so the Spring race would profit from that.  Now, BMS has done away with the ticket package and went to selling the events individually.  There was never any question in my mind that the Spring race would be a ghost town.

And it was.  So, let’s change everything based on what was always a subpar Bristol crowd anyway.

Here you go, race fans.  You have spoken and Bristol Motor Speedway and Bruton Smith have answered with changes that should bring back the “old” style of Bristol racing.  Be sure to respond with your pocketbooks and get your tickets now for August.

Oh, wait….you’re going to see if the track changes are worth it first?  I thought so.

I predict that the August race will return to Bristol’s usual “on-paper” sellout, and the stands will still have empty seats.  The true test of the changes will be the ticket sales for March 2013.

One last thought from a disgruntled Bristol fan…

If I see anyone, I mean, ANYONE complain about how:

the lap down cars are rolling roadblocks that need to get out of the way

… or that Jeff Gordon keeps “running over people” to pass

… or that someone purposely wrecked Dale Jr instead of just passing him…

I will have NO problems reminding you what you’ve done.  Goodbye, Bristol racing, and hello again to Bristol wrecking.  Not all of us have missed you.