Nashville's Superspeedway Ventures - part 1

Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway hosted NASCAR's Grand National division (later Winston Cup Series) from 1958 through 1984. Following financial difficulties of the track's operator, Warner Hodgdon, NASCAR pulled its sanctioning agreement after 1984.

Though NASCAR and related financial support of the Winston Racing program returned later to the Fairgrounds with local racing, trucks, and Busch (now Xfinity) Series, Cup never returned. Many continue to believe that will forever be the case.

Perhaps more than ever, however, a glimmer of renewed hope recently appeared. Speedway Motorsports, Inc. has indicated a willingness to collaborate with the current operators of the track, the city of Nashville, and its Fair Board to revitalize the speedway.

SMI will be swimming upstream as it tries to navigate the good ol' boy network of Nashville politics and the changing citizenry demographics of areas surrounding the Fairgrounds. While many outside of Nashville think SMI's investment in the property is a slam-dunk, can't miss proposal, those inside the greater Nashville area understand (barely) the forces that more often than not have been against the race track the past several decades.

For over 50 years, local promoters, investors, and developers have visioned a future for Nashville-area racing well beyond the boundaries of the land-locked fairgrounds.

Bennie Goodman was originally a partner with Mark Parrish and Bill Donoho in the development of what is today Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway. Donoho later acquired the equity positions of both Goodman and Parrish. By the late 1960s, Goodman believed racing had already outgrown the fairgrounds - just 10 years or so after the half-mile and quarter-mile tracks opened.

Goodman along with a handful of partners (including singer Roy Orbison and future NASCAR flagman Doyle Ford) formed Nashville International Raceways, Inc. in early 1969. The company purchased land southeast of Nashville near the intersection of I-24 and Old Hickory Blvd. Though few details have surfaced, it is believed Goodman was the first to envision a middle Tennessee superspeedway.

Goodman's team could not secure guaranteed sanctioning from NASCAR and Bill France. The company then sold the land a year or so later, and Goodman and others made successful investments in other non-racing projects.

In mid-May 1973, Donoho announced plans to build a superspeedway at just about the same location as Goodman's planned project a few years earlier. Local racing would have remained at the fairgrounds, but Cup racing and other major events would have been moved to the new facility.


Donoho planned to have the track ready by mid-1974 for the annual Nashville 420. Instead, the project never got off the ground. Years later, Starwood Amphitheater opened not far from the planned site. Starwood hosted many epic concerts during the 80s and 90s.

In 1975, Donoho revamped his plan to build a new track just a couple of exits down from the site announced in 1973.

Perhaps in an effort to create more buzz and industry equity, Donoho announced some notable investors including NASCAR drivers Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough along with Loretta Lynn's husband, Mooney.

Donoho spent the better part of 1976-1977 working on his new project - including releasing an architectural rendering of the new speedway. Considering the era, the track was to be second to none including Charlotte and Daytona.

Despite his focused efforts, however, Donoho's multi-year plan to build a state of the art facility for future Cup racing was spiraling the wrong direction. By the end of 1977, Donoho found an old cemetery on his new property. A few months later, his track plans may just as well have been buried there.

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Donoho never realized his vision of building a new track. Furthermore, he sold his rights to the lease of the Fairgrounds track to Lanny Hester and Gary Baker in late 1978. By and large, Donoho's quarter-century run as a Nashville race promoter was over.

Part 2: The dreams of building a Nashville-area superspeedway did not end with Donoho's departure.

Source for articles: The Tennessean archives

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