Speedway Classic: A Baseball Game at a NASCAR Track?

You know an event is going to be wild when the biggest challenge is figuring out how to build a baseball field inside a NASCAR track.

For one weekend, the high banks of Bristol Motor Speedway stopped being a race track and became the home of the first-ever major league baseball game in Tennessee. The Speedway Classic was a massive experiment that ended up drawing a record-breaking crowd for a truly one-of-a-kind game.

Building a Ballpark on the Banks

You can’t just build a baseball field onto a NASCAR track. Bristol’s infield is sloped, with a nearly 4-foot drop from the edge to the center. To make it level, crews had to haul in almost 18,000 tons of gravel before they could even think about laying down the turf.

On top of that, they installed a professional-grade artificial field, complete with a shock pad to make sure the ball bounced correctly.Everything you’d find at a normal ballpark, from the dugouts to the bullpens, had to be built from nothing, turning the Last Great Colosseum into a temporary baseball paradise.

Overcoming Unique Challenges

Building the field was just one part of the puzzle. The venue itself had some quirks, like the giant Colossus scoreboard hanging low over the field.It was so close to the action—just 1 ft inside the foul line—that MLB had to create a special rule: if a player hit it, the ball was instantly dead.

The design team even got creative with the event’s logos and branding, shearing all the graphics at a 26-degree angle to match the steep banking of the track’s turns, perfectly blending the look of the two sports.

The Home Run Corvette

This is where the event truly embraced its location. Instead of just the usual fireworks for a home run, a new Corvette would fire up and take a thunderous victory lap around the field’s perimeter.

Every time Eli White sent one over the fence, the crowd was treated to the roar of a V8, blending the thrill of a baseball highlight with the sound and speed of the race track. It was a perfect nod to Bristol’s racing soul and an awesome event that capped off a historic day for the sport.

A Record-Breaking Game Day at the Speedway Classic

The wild idea paid off, as a regular-season record crowd of more than 80,000 fans showed up to watch the Atlanta Braves take on the Cincinnati Reds. The game was a great show, with the Braves taking home the win.

The hero of the day was Braves outfielder Eli White, who hit two home runs, giving the huge crowd something extra to cheer about and triggering a brand-new Corvette celebration.