Bristol Motor Speedway announced plans to improve the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on Tuesday evening, if a contract agreement is reached between the company and the city of Nashville.
Citizens of the fairgrounds neighborhood yet again spoke against Speedway Motorsports’ plan of bringing NASCAR back to Nashville at a public meeting Tuesday.
“Just as the track is now, it’s deafening,” Tanya Deane, who lives a quarter-mile from the Fairgrounds Speedway, told The Tennessean. “To think about going from what we have now to something even louder is really scary.”
Residents main issues centered on noise levels, traffic, and the time period at which the company and city were looking to complete the deal. However, for some residents the historic race track still holds precious memories and family histories. –
“We leave the neighborhood on most race weeks because it’s too loud to do anything,” Deane said. “A NASCAR race would be louder than anything currently being held.”
“Racing is so much more than just a sport. It’s a family affair for so many people,” one woman said.
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Others said that they would love to see the outdated facility be renovated in order to build a better attraction for the city. The company expects to maintain 10 race weekends, the current maximum allowed, using one of those weekends to slot in a NASCAR race.
“The beautiful thing of this is that you’re taking a historic venue and bringing back something that made it prominent,” Caldwell said.
Although they were long lines Tuesday night to speak in opposition and support of the Fairgrounds Speedway expansion plans, it’s eventually up to the commissioners decision on how things move forward.