fast and furious

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.
--Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American novelist

Snuck into the Bristol Motor Speedway the other day when I was in Bristol - it's really an amazing sight to see in person. It's hard to really show the size and scale of the facility with its (relatively) tiny half mile, 40-foot-wide track completely surrounded by 160,000 seats. With 43 cars starting each race, Bristol is known for its intensity, its congestion and its yellow flags -- being likened to "flying fighter jets in a gymnasium". If you're in the area, it's worth the time to stop by and get a legitimate tour of "The World's Fastest Half-Mile" (still only five bucks) which includes a tour of the owner's suite, a lap around the track and a ride down the nearby dragway nicknamed 'Thunder Valley'. Tickets are still available for the August Race Weekend (August 18-21) - visit the BMS website if you're interested. Previous posts and photos here.

Bristol Motor Speedway

Bristol Motor Speedway at 6 a.m. on race day awaiting the Sharpie 500 and 160,000 fans. Even with that many seats, it remains one of the top ten hottest tickets in sports.

The spring race, we have a 99-percent renewal rate on tickets, ... For this race, it's 99.6 percent, which proves that 0.4 percent of the people don't renew their tickets to Bristol. We figure those are the ones that died.
--Jeff Byrd (1949-2010) President and General Manager, Speedway Motorsports, Inc.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
—John Gillespie Magee, Jr (1922-1941)

Above: Fighter jets en route to a flyover of the Bristol Motor Speedway and the Sharpie 500.

Bristol Motor Speedway

Appalachia would be complete without a stop at the Bristol Motor Speedway? When I visit Illinois where I grew up and people ask me where I'm living, it doesn't do any good to say I live near Johnson City or Kingsport or Boone. But they have heard of Bristol. Twice each year 160,000 race fans make their pilgrimage to Bristol, TN to experience the roar and excitement of the "World's Fastest Half-Mile." With all those seats, you'd think tickets would be easy to get -- but Bristol is considered the "toughest ticket in NASCAR." Even if you can't make the race, you can still experience the speedway by taking a tour of the facility (only five dollars!), which includes a look inside owner Bruton Smith's luxury suite high above, a lap around the track with its 36 degree banks, and a run down the nearby dragway known as "Thunder Valley." If you're ever in the area, stop by and experience "racin' the way it ought'a be."
What trek through