Bruton Smith: on the next 'new' Bristol, and much more

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net


   BRISTOL, Tenn.
   Bruton Smith says "we had to do something" after so many fans complained about less than thrilling racing at the March Sprint Cup race here. So the stock car racing mega-promoter has started construction crews on a major grinding process to eliminate the upper groove at Bristol Motor Speedway, a project that has to be done in time for Goodyear to test tires for the August NASCAR weekend.
   "The fans jumped on this like a dog on a bone," Smith said of the complaints. "We've learned a lot of things….."
   With a stage backdrop of the fourth turn, and grinding equipment up next to the wall, Smith said "We will change the way a driver will approach the corners…and take away the advantage drivers had in running the top groove. They had a decided advantage up there."
   By running high, drivers can carry more momentum through the turns.

    The two-hour long media briefing, as typical with Smith, covered far more than just the changes at Bristol.
    Lackluster racing on the Cup tour this season….
    Exorbitant hotel rates….
    Too few Cup team owners….
    But the action on NASCAR's fastest half-mile was of course the focal point.
   Smith himself, tongue in cheek, suggests taking a page from the National Football League "and hire a coach from New Orleans to come here on race day and set up 'the bounty.'
    "A driver would get so much for a quarterpanel, so much for rubbing the number off another driver's door…
    "The more I thought about that, I'm thinking the last 30 laps the bounty doubles. That would create a lot of excitement here….and the tickets would be $500 apiece, and it's going to work for the speedway and the race fans."

   The Bristol track here, a stock car tour staple since 1960, has long been one of the most amazing tracks in the sport, indeed one of the most amazing sports facilities in the country, regardless of sport.
   However lately things haven't been so good.
   Hence Smith's changes.
   "The best way to describe it we're 'modifying' what we have, and it will be better," Smith said. "Come August, we'll find out if we're right or wrong.
   "And I think we're right."
   Jerry Caldwell, the track boss here for Smith, who owns eight NASCAR tour venues, says the schedule "is going to be tight."
   Goodyear has already scheduled a tire test for June 12th and 13th; the teams have yet to be determined. "The most important thing to us is making sure the actual racing surface is the same from the bottom of the track to the top," Goodyear's Stu Grant says.
   In 2007 the track was re-concreted with three groove of variably banking in the corners, from 24 degrees low to 30 degrees high. The short straights have remained at 11 degrees.
   The current regrinding process has already cut the maximum banking to 28 degrees, but just how much more grinding may be done is apparently still up in the air.
   And what Smith and Caldwell might decide to do next, they'll consider after seeing how the August race plays out.
   While Dale Earnhardt Jr. suggested repaving the track in asphalt (it was concreted first in 1993).
   Drivers like the variable banking, because they didn't have to shove a rival out of the way to pass. "No driver wants to have fans booing after you win, but that's what we had here before," Darrell Waltrip, a 12-time winner at this track, says.
   Fans however preferred the 'old'  Bristol style of racing, perhaps best epitomized by Dale Earnhardt versus Terry Labonte in 1995. And for last month's race here the crowd was clearly off at this huge 160,000-seat facility.
   Smith, barely 24 hours later, vowed to change something, to get those fans back.

   This track was once known as the toughest ticket in NASCAR, with long waiting lists to get a seat.
   Caldwell says the elephant in the room for all NASCAR promoters continues to be the economy.
   Smith agrees that the cost of hotel rooms is a major issue for fans and for the sport. Hoteliers at NASCAR venues "are gouging the race fans.
   "We beg and plead for the hotels to change that."
   When it was suggested that fans could more cheaply fly to Las Vegas for a NASCAR weekend there than to come here for a NASCAR weekend, Smith said "I believe it."
   How about some anti-gouging laws for these hoteliers? "I would hope for a law in Tennessee for that, and I believe it's come to that," Smith said.
   Eventually Smith says this place will be even bigger: "When racing gets back to the way we all want it to be, we have a plan to add 7,000 seats here."

   Smith and his men have taken a number of surveys of fans about this track and the racing. Smith says 40 percent wanted change, 60 percent said don't change anything.
   Smith is reacting to the vocal 40 percent.
   Smith said he has kept NASCAR officials abreast of his plans. "I don't want to create a train wreck here.
   "Goodyear has been involved too.
    "And I plan to ask Goodyear to bring a softer tire. The tires have been too hard."
   However Goodyear tried a softer tire last year, and that move backfired when the tire wore out too far.
   But Smith said he wasn't all that interested in listening to drivers. "I've built more race tracks than anyone in the world, and I have never consulted race drivers. I do not consult race drivers….because it will drive you nuts.
   "So we've used knowledge from engineers.
   "Several drivers said don't change a thing here. The main ones who didn't like it were the race fans.
   "So we're trying to please both sides."

   And Smith's move, ironically, comes as fans – following less than thrilling Cup races at Texas and Kansas the last two weeks – have become increasingly vocal about their disenchantment. Those 900 miles of racing featured just five cautions, and none of those for any serious incident.
   Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin say the current cars are so fast and so aerodynamic that drivers cannot pass each other easily, thus cutting back on the opportunities for cautions.
    Waltrip, looking at the big picture of so much follow-the-leader-racing, says he suspects drivers may be, in effect, 'gaming' the new points system. With 12 teams assured of making the playoffs and a run for the championship, and with maybe only 10 or so solid championship teams, those 10 or 12 or 14 teams with playoff shots are perhaps more concerned with not making any big mistakes during the 26-race regular season, instead of framin' and bammin' with each other.
   Would slowing the cars make for better racing?
   Marcus Smith, head of Speedway Motorsports, and Charlotte Motor Speedway, and Smith's son, says that's one way to get these drivers side by side more often. "So drivers can bang on each other, get sideways, and still come out of a turn," Marcus Smith said.
   "There are a lot of different things that could be done.
   "But Brad has a good point – if the cars were slowed down, drivers could run more on the ragged edge."
   Bruton Smith agrees: "Slowing the cars down is an answer.
   "You go back in history, and consider open-wheels – every time they slowed the cars, they made progress.
   "Racing has always progressed by doing that (slowing the cars).
   "I'm telling you something else that would help – if we had 43 car owners for these 43 cars. That would solve all our problems."

   Bruton Smith, whose crowd at Texas April 14th was less than hoped for, says he will be talking with NASCAR about those complaints about lackluster racing. "It's ridiculous, and if I'd bought a ticket, I'd be upset," Smith said.
   "But that's a NASCAR thing. It's something that NASCAR can help control. They can have a 'competition caution' at any time.
  "NASCAR could have thrown the caution at Texas when Jimmie Johnson hit the wall (late, while challenging Greg Biffle for the lead). That situation begged for a caution flag, but we didn't get it."