Bristol Motor Speedway announced a sellout on Saturday afternoon. Historically the race at the half-mile track in eastern Tennessee sells out well in advance but ticket sales across the circuit have sagged this season. Speedway Motorsports Inc., which owns BMS, did not sell out Atlanta Motor Speedway two weeks ago for the Kobalt Tools 500 and declared a “virtual sellout” at Las Vegas Motor Speedway the week before that.
But it didn’t happen easily. Because of the economic recession, corporate sponsors turned in many of their tickets, forcing the track to sell more seats than usual and placing the sellout streak in jeopardy. This year marked the first time that Bristol race tickets had been available to the general public since parent company Speedway Motorsports Inc. purchased the track in 1996.
“It took longer than we thought, but we’re very excited to be racing again in front of a packed house,” track president and general manager Jeff Byrd said. “It’s a tribute to the people who work at the speedway, our fans and the people of the region. They made it happen.”
The streak at the 160,000-seat track dates to Aug. 28, 1982 and is the longest in NASCAR. The Food City 500 is the first Sprint Cup race of the 2009 season to sell out.
Packed stands and long waiting lists for tickets were once a guarantee and part of the lure of BMS, a must-see venue billed as the world’s fastest half-mile. But a lingering economic recession has hammered at race fans’ discretionary income. And Byrd reported nearly two weeks ago that corporate tickets sales for the spring race were down 50 percent from a year ago.
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