Bristol Motor Speedway opened in 1961 as a banked half-mile track in the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee. From the outset it developed a reputation for intense contact racing, owing to its steep banking — originally 27 degrees, later adjusted to a variable system ranging from 24 to 28 degrees — and its compact layout that placed cars in close proximity at all times. The track hosted its first temporary dirt surface in 2000 and 2001 under owner Speedway Motorsports, LLC (SMI), running dirt racing events on both occasions. The experiments were discontinued after 2001 because of issues with the lengthy cleanup required to remove the dirt and restore the concrete surface.
When the track uses a dirt surface, the banking profile changes: the turns run a progressive banking system from 16 to 19 degrees under dirt, lower than the concrete configuration, reflecting the handling characteristics of clay racing and the altered tire compounds used. Bristol is also the only remaining track on the NASCAR schedule with two pit road lanes rather than one.
Track officials announced in 2020 that the Food City 500, Bristol's spring NASCAR Cup Series race, would return to a temporary dirt surface. The decision came as part of an effort to address declining attendance at the facility and to generate renewed interest in the event. The NASCAR Truck Series was also added to the dirt weekend. The first race under this format took place in 2021, after the 2020 race was pushed back due to pandemic scheduling. The event drew significant attention as the first Cup Series dirt race in decades, connecting the modern series with the sport's heritage on dirt ovals where drivers including Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and other historical figures had built their careers.
The dirt format ran for three consecutive years — 2020 announcement, 2021 and 2022 races under dirt — before the event returned to the original concrete surface. The temporary dirt layer required substantial work to install and remove, involving trucking in large quantities of clay and then excavating and disposing of the material after the race weekend, echoing the logistical challenges that had ended the 2000-01 dirt experiment.
Bristol Motor Speedway itself is one of the largest sports facilities in the United States by capacity, accommodating 146,000 spectators as of 2021, down from a peak of 162,000. The facility is located adjacent to U.S. Route 11E and also features a two-lane drag strip measuring 0.250 miles, operational since 1965. The track has been owned by SMI since Bruton Smith purchased it in January 1996 for $26 million. The facility underwent major expansion under Smith's ownership, constructing the Kulwicki Tower in 1999 and 2000, named after Alan Kulwicki, and installing a 30-by-63 foot center-hung video screen called Colossus TV in 2016.
The track has served functions beyond racing, acting as an evacuee center during Hurricanes Irma, Florence, and Dorian, and hosting a COVID-19 vaccine distribution site. In 2016, Bristol hosted the Battle at Bristol, an NCAA football game between Tennessee and Virginia Tech that drew the largest crowd in college football history, with 156,990 attendees. A regular-season Major League Baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds was held at the track in August 2025, the first MLB game played in Tennessee.
The Bristol dirt events occupied an unusual position in contemporary NASCAR: a major Cup Series oval temporarily reverting to the surface that defined American stock car racing's earliest decades. Dirt-track heritage runs deep in NASCAR history — many drivers of the sport's foundational era learned their craft on clay ovals — and the Bristol dirt races invoked that lineage while presenting modern Cup machinery in a context that demanded different driving skills. The events generated strong fan and media interest, with the novelty of a banked short-track dirt race at the top level of American stock car racing distinguishing the Bristol spring weekend from any other event on the calendar during its run.