Nashville Superspeedway

Nashville Superspeedway

Location	4847-F McCreary Road Lebanon, TN 37090
Capacity	38,000 [1]
Owner	Dover Motorsports, Inc.
Opened	2001 Reopen: 2021
Major events	NASCAR Cup Series NASCAR Xfinity Series NASCAR Camping World Truck Series ARCA Menards Series
Tri-oval
Surface	Concrete
Length	1.333 mi (2.145 km)
Turns	4
Banking	14°
Race lap record	0:23.271 (206.214 MPH) (Scott Dixon, Chip Ganassi Racing, 2003, Toyota IndyCar Series)

Nashville Superspeedway is a motor racing complex located in Gladeville, Tennessee, United States (though the track has a Lebanon postal address), about 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Nashville. The track was built in 2001 and is currently hosting the Ally 400, a NASCAR Cup Series regular season event, the Tennessee Lottery 250, and the Rackley Roofing 200.^[2]

It is a concrete oval track 11⁄3 miles (2.145 km) long. Nashville Superspeedway is owned by Dover Motorsports, Inc., which also owns Dover International Speedway. Nashville Superspeedway is the longest concrete oval in NASCAR. Current permanent seating capacity is approximately 25,000, but will reach up to 38,000 for the NASCAR Cup Series event in 2021.^[3] Additional portable seats are brought in for some events, and seating capacity can be expanded to 150,000.^[4] Infrastructure is in place to expand the facility to include a short track, drag strip, and road course.

History[]

At its peak, the facility hosted four major races each year: two NASCAR Xfinity Series races and two NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series races (one per year prior to 2010). The IndyCar Series Firestone Indy 200 was run at the track from its opening until 2008. Each feature event was usually accompanied by a companion event from lower-tier series such as ARCA and Indy Lights. NASCAR continually showed little interest in staging a NASCAR Cup Series race at the track.

In October 2009, Dover Motorsports decided to close Memphis Motorsports Park, and the Memphis Truck race originally scheduled for late June 2010 was moved to Nashville Superspeedway on April 2, one day prior to the annual Nationwide Series race at the track. The April Truck race was known as the "Nashville 200". Nashville Superspeedway became the only facility on the circuit to host two Truck Series races without hosting a NASCAR Cup event.

As is a Nashville metropolitan tradition, specially-designed Gibson Les Paul guitars are presented to race winners in place of conventional trophies.^[5] The track also has a reputation for producing many first-time winners.

The track is referred by the classic term of a "superspeedway" (a track of one mile (1.6 km) or longer, compared to a short track), and is named to differentiate itself from the .596 mile Fairgrounds Speedway (previously known as Nashville Speedway USA) at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds near downtown Nashville. Until 1984, Nashville Speedway USA had conducted a pair of 420-lap Cup races, but NASCAR pulled its sanctioning license from the circuit after disputes over who would manage the track took place prior to the start of the 1985 season.

Closure[]

Following sluggish attendance for major events and no prospects of gaining a Cup Series event, Dover Motorsports announced that the track would not seek NASCAR sanctions in 2012, effectively shutting it down, on August 3, 2011. In the announcement, Dover also hinted that the track was up for sale.^[6] The track remained available for private use, such as car and tire testing.^[7]

The track also remained available, and has been used, as a filming location for various television and film projects. From 2012 to 2014, Nashville Superspeedway was used for testing by NASCAR teams^[8] before NASCAR banned all private tests in 2015.

Attempted sale[]

On May 29, 2014, it was announced that NeXovation, Inc. would be purchasing the racetrack and all assets and equipment from Dover Motorsports for $27 million.^[9] However, the deal never materialized and Dover Motorsports reopened the sale of the track on July 28, 2015. NeXovation had invested $2.9 million (mostly nonrefundable) into the track, mostly in deadline extensions, and Dover pulled out of the sale after another deadline was missed and no payment was received.^[10] The deal with NeXovation was ultimately canceled, though the company lost approximately $2.9 million in earnest money.^[11]

On August 25, 2016, Dover announced it had reached an agreement to sell the property to Panattoni Development Company in a $44.7 million deal. Panattoni planned to convert the site into a distribution and logistics park, the primary usage of commercial real estate in the area.^[12] In 2018 the deal was reduced to a 147 acres (59 ha) portion of the property only,^[13] with another 132 acres (53 ha) being sold in 2019;^[14] Panattoni also held an option on an additional 97.17 acres (39.32 ha) to be exercised before 2022.^[15]

Reopening[]

On June 2, 2020, reports began to surface that Nashville Superspeedway would reopen in 2021 and would host a NASCAR Cup Series race, with a date of Sunday, June 20. The race would replace one of the two races the series runs at Dover International Speedway, which is also owned by Dover Motorsports.^[16] On June 3, NASCAR confirmed that the track will reopen to host a Cup race in 2021, replacing one of the two Dover dates.^[17] The track brought on sports management executive Erik Moses as track president in August 2020 ahead of the reopening.^[18] The race will be called the Ally 400.^[19] On March 23, 2021, Goodyear hosted a tire test at the track. Each manufacturer was represented, with Christopher Bell (Toyota), Chase Briscoe (Ford), and Kurt Busch (Chevrolet) turning laps around the track.^{[citation needed]}

Records[]

• NASCAR Cup Series Qualifying: Aric Almirola, 29.557 sec. (161.992 mph), June 20, 2021
• NASCAR Cup Series Race: Kyle Larson, 3 hours, 30 minutes 23 seconds, June 20, 2021
• NASCAR Xfinity Series Qualifying: David Stremme, 28.811 sec. (166.561 mph), June 2007
• NASCAR Xfinity Series Race: Scott Wimmer, 2 hrs. 14 min. 12 sec. (134.095 mph), March 22, 2008
• NASCAR Truck Series Qualifying: Erik Darnell, 29.601 sec. (162.116 mph), 2006
• NASCAR Truck Series Race: Kyle Busch, 1 hr. 27 min. 55 sec. (136.459 mph), April 2, 2010
• Indycar Qualifying: Scott Dixon, 23.271 sec. (206.211 mph / 331.864 km/h), July 18, 2003
• Indycar Race: Buddy Lazier, 144.809 mph (233.047 km/h), July 21, 2001

Feature race winners[]

NASCAR Cup Series[]

NASCAR Xfinity Series[]

NASCAR Truck Series[]

IndyCar Series[]

IRL IndyCar Series history
Season	Date	Winning Driver	Chassis	Engine	Team
2001	July 21	Buddy Lazier	Dallara	Oldsmobile	Hemelgarn Racing
2002	July 20	Alex Barron	Dallara	Chevrolet
2003	July 19	Gil de Ferran	Dallara	Toyota	Team Penske
2004	July 17	Tony Kanaan	Dallara	Honda	Andretti Green Racing
2005	July 16	Dario Franchitti	Dallara	Honda	Andretti Green Racing
2006	July 15	Scott Dixon	Dallara	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
2007	July 15*	Scott Dixon	Dallara	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing
2008	July 12*	Scott Dixon	Dallara	Honda	Chip Ganassi Racing

• 2007 Race postponed from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon due to rain
• 2008 Race shortened to 171 laps due to rain

See also[]

• List of NASCAR tracks

References[]

External links[]

• Nashville Superspeedway Official Site
• Nashville Superspeedway race results at Racing-Reference

Coordinates: 36°02′40″N 86°24′45″W / 36.04442°N 86.41262°W / 36.04442; -86.41262