Nashville's Superspeedway Ventures - part 2

Part 1: Nashville's Superspeedway Ventures - 1960s-1970s

In late 1978, promoter Bill Donoho sold his interest in the Fairgrounds lease to racer Lanny Hester and CPA-lawyer-businessman Gary Baker. A couple of years later, Hester sold 25 percent of his interest to Stanley King - a local construction contractor. Hester, Baker, and King planned to develop their own superspeedway - independent of Donoho's plans from the previous few years.

Baker subsequently partnered with California businessman Warner Hodgdon. The partnership then bought out Hester and King and proceeded with their plans to build a track in an undisclosed location.

In late 1980, however, promoter and former racer Boyd Adams announced plans for his superspeedway - Tennessee International Raceway. Unlike Donoho who planned to build southeast of Nashville, Adams announced his track would be built in Robertson County - about 30 minutes northwest of Nashville. As advance prep for the project, Adams purchased thousands of grandstand seats, scales, medical equipment, etc. from the Ontario Motor Speedway. The Ontario track closed following its final race - the LA Times 500 Cup race - in November 1980 after Dale Earnhardt clinched his first Cup title.

From the jump, however, Adams encountered a myriad of challenges including (1) local residents who wanted nothing to do with the project with concerns about noise, traffic, crime, pollution, etc. and (2) a lack of support from NASCAR President Bill France, Jr.

June 10, 1981 - The Tennessean

April 24, 1981 - The Tennessean

Baker announced his speedway plans in November 1981. Prior to partnering with Hodgdon, he floated the vague statement that others were interested in joining with him. A rumored investor was Richard Petty - similar to the arrangement Bill Donoho promoted in the mid 1970s. In the end, however, Baker was convinced Hodgdon's finances and construction project experience would be the key elements to build the track.

Baker's announcement had other vague aspects. He did not name a location for the track nor a timeline for its construction. In subsequent news reports, Baker did acknowledge the effort would take two or three years.

Despite news of Baker's planned development, Adams continued onward with his project. He had to change sites a couple of times to satisfy local citizens and politicians, but he finally negotiated a governmental development bond to help ensure project financing.

March 9, 1982 - The Tennessean

About a year later, however, Adams was no closer to fulfilling his dream than Donoho years earlier. Local opposition continued to be a thorn in his side, and he finally pulled his project into the garage.

April 27, 1983 - The Tennessean

Two months after Adams noted his project was dead-in-the-water came the stunning news that Baker sold his half-interest in Nashville's Fairgrounds track to Hodgdon. With the transaction, Hodgdon became sole "owner" of the track's lease. Hodgdon opted not to negotiate an extension of the Fairgrounds lease beyond 1987. That decision led some to believe he still planned to build a replacement track and move all racing away from the Fairgrounds. The reality, as it turned out, was far deeper than anyone fathomed.

About 18 months after buying out Baker, Hodgdon filed bankruptcy. His ownership interest in the Fairgrounds lease as well as other race tracks such as Bristol, Rockingham, and Richmond along with half-interest in Junior Johnson's race teams were caught in his dire financial challenges.

As Hodgdon's assets and liabilities were debated, negotiated, distributed, settled, etc., another casualty of the bankruptcy filing was the Nashville area superspeedway. Though Hodgdon was not in a position to build a new track, Baker continued to pursue the project on his own. Such plans, however, were murkier than ever.

The location of Baker's and Hodgdon's planned track wasn't announced in 1981. Over time, Baker purchased several acres in in Franklin, TN just off I-65. He could not, however, accumulate all that was needed to fulfill the development.

Without the remaining acreage, Baker divested the land. Instead of a speedway, Cool Springs Galleria was constructed on the site and opened in 1991. The mall has spurred a ton of retail, sales and property tax revenues, attractive housing, desirable schools, etc. As someone who now lives about 10 minutes from the location, it's hard to imagine how different Franklin would have become had the track been built.


One vestige of Baker's involvement remains near the mall. Baker's Bridge Ave. runs perpendicular from the top of the mall across I-65 and to Carothers Parkway. One wonders if the track would have been built on the west side of I-65 with parking and other fan amenities on the east side.


Though Adams' plan ended in spring 1983 and Baker's plan effectively ended in July 1983 with his sell-out to Hodgdon, the idea of a new Nashville-area track continued.

A trio of investors/developers - with no racing experience or connections - announced in mid 1985 they planned to build a 1.6 mile track in Robertson County - not far from Adams' failed location. The track was to be named Music City Motor Complex. Baker assessed their likelihood of success as low.

June 4, 1985 - The Tennessean

July 18, 1985 - The Tennessean

Baker's prediction was spot-on. Within just a few months, the developers learned what others had already experienced. Without community support or a commitment from NASCAR, no spade of dirt would be turned.

August 2, 1985 - The Tennessean

A new racing wildcatter, Jesse Rogers, arrived on the scene in 1992. Rogers acquired over 1,000 acres of land near Shelbyville, TN - about 60 miles south of Nashville. Shelbyville is known worldwide for its annual Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration. Rogers, however, planned to bring several hundred horsepower to the area.

Rogers'  Rocky Top Speedway plans included a uniquely-shaped two-mile superspeedway, a road course, a drag strip, a golf course, camping areas, and a motorsports museum.


Three years later, however, the song remained the same. Financing challenges. Legal woes. Delays. Yada, yada, yada. As with all the predecessor projects, Rocky Top turned to Rocky Slop.

After nearly three decades of announced and fizzled speedway projects, middle Tennessee racing fans got some unexpected news. Dover Downs Entertainment announced with great fanfare their plans for a new superspeedway in November 1997. Dover acquired the lease for the Fairgrounds track and set plans in motion to build what was to become Nashville Superspeedway in Wilson County - about 35 miles east of the Fairgrounds.

Though the track was built - unlike every other predecessor project - the effort wasn't without challenges. To add some local credibility, Dover partnered with Nashville-based Gaylord Entertainment Company as a minority investor. Gaylord owned the Grand Ole Opry, the Opryland theme park and hotel, and WSM radio. It also held naming rights to Nashville's new hockey and concert arena. Two years later, however, Gaylord announced it was divesting itself of its minority position. Dover then had to complete the project on its own.

After several delays, Dover finally began construction on the track in fall 1999. The Nashville Superspeedway hosted its inaugural events in April 2001- nearly three decades after Bill Donoho first visioned his big track.


Despite the hype associated with the new facility, Nashville Superspeedway just didn't resonate. After only 10 years of operations, Dover closed the track following the 2011 season.

Epilogue:

Boyd Adams competed with Gary Baker to build a Nashville-area superspeedway. Baker reassumed control of the Fairgrounds Speedway lease in 1985 as part of Hodgdon's bankruptcy proceedings. Three years later, he opted not to pursue a lease renewal. The Nashville Fair Board awarded Adams the lease beginning in 1988. Among other improvements to the facility, Adams replaced the track's grandstand seating with the seats from Ontario that he'd mothballed since 1981 - seating he had planned to install at his never-built Tennessee International Raceway.

Baker didn't realize his dream of building a superspeedway; however, he didn't end up empty handed. He parlayed the land he accumulated for the track into an investment in the Cool Springs retail area. He also returned to racing in the early 2000s as a team co-owner. Partnering with long-time racing enthusiast, music publisher, and former politician Mike Curb, the two purchased the assets of Brewco Motorsports. They moved the team from Central City, Kentucky to Nashville and operated multiple Busch/Nationwide Series teams until 2011. The doors were shuttered after additional sponsorship could not be secured.

With nearly a half-century of grand ideas and failed ventures to construct a new track, middle Tennessee racing has seemingly made a full lap. In recent months, Speedway Motorsports, Inc. via Bristol Motor Speedway has indicated its interest in helping renovate the existing Fairgrounds Speedway. Their plans and investment would help elevate the track to a first-class short-track jewel. Perhaps that vision is one everyone should have dreamed over all these years.

TMC

May 12, 1984: Nuttiness At Nashville

My introduction to stock car racing was at Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway in 1974. While I won't swear to it, I think the evening's feature was a 200-lap NASCAR late model sportsman race featuring drivers such as Jack Ingram, L.D. Ottinger, Harry Gant, Morgan Shepherd and Butch Lindley. The date, the race, who won, etc. have all been forgotten, but I do remember my eyes being wide open and my heart pumping.

The first time I got to see Cup cars live was during qualifying for the 1976 Nashville 420. My first Cup race to attend was naturally at Nashville - the 1978 Music City 420. During the second half of the 1970s, I was a bigger fan of the local favorites such as Steve Spencer, Alton Jones, Sterling Marlin, Mike Alexander, Tony Cunningham, P.B. Crowell III, etc. than I was of the Cup series. After leaving for college, however, I found it harder to keep up with the local guys and really went all-in as a Cup fan.

The original ownership group sold to another in the late 70s, and the track was renamed Nashville International Raceway. California real estate developer and racing outsider Warner Hodgon bought into the ownership group (as well as stakes in Bristol and North Wilkesboro), and 'International' was dropped from the track's name. Yet then (and now) I always just referred to the track as 'the fairgrounds'.

After being known as the Music City USA 420 through the 1970s, the spring race took a title sponsor coinciding with the ownership change. In 1984, the race was branded as the Coors 420 - though a car with Po' Folks restaurant was featured on the program. Go figure. (One of the local guys was sponsored by Po' Folks ... I think.)

Coors sponsored the race as well as a car in the race - the #9 Harry Melling Ford. The team's driver, Bill Elliott, was still a season away from exploding in the NASCAR consciousness with his dominating 1985 season. A different beer brand, however, sponsored the two cars that became the story of the race - Budweiser.

In 1982, Junior Johnson announced two sport-shaking deals. One, he announced Hodgdon was investing in his team. Also, he planned to expand his operation to a two-car team in 1984. Outside investors and multi-car teams in NASCAR were both rarities up to that point. Generally speaking, the second car was way off the primary car.

Darrell Waltrip was already on board with Junior's championship winning #11 team. Neil Bonnett joined him in 1984 in a matching Chevrolet after spending a transition year in 1983 with Rahmoc Racing and 'sponsorship' by Hodgdon. Both cars were sponsored by Budweiser and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the team was quickly dubbed Double Thunder.

The team should perhaps have been nicknamed Double Trouble. Though the two teams had common ownership, sponsors, and car makes, the 11 and 12 bunch did not function as a team as is the model for contemporary NASCAR racing. Led by crew chiefs Jeff Hammond (for Waltrip) and Doug Richert (for Bonnett), the two cars were perhaps more competitive with one another than with other cars on the track.

Yet - they were quick. On short tracks where Junior's cars historically had run well, they raced even better with DW and Neil behind the wheel.

As the Winston Cup series rolled into Music City for the 10th race of the 1984 season, Waltrip was ready to race with a high level of confidence.

• He was a two-time late model champion at the track in 1970 and 1973.
• Waltrip earned his first Cup win at the track in 1975.
• The 11 team was the defending champion of the race having won the Marty Robbins 420 a year earlier.
• DW had two wins and eight Top 10s in the first 9 races of the year. 

Sure enough, the 11 team laid down the quickest qualifying lap on Friday night to nab the pole. Ricky Rudd qualified alongside Waltrip in his Wrangler Jeans Bud Moore Ford. A couple of unsponsored drivers made up the second row: Geoff Bodine in Rick Hendrick's Chevy and Ron Bouchard in Jack Beebe's Buick. Dale Earnhardt rounded out the starting five in a second Wrangler ride, Richard Childress' Chevy.

Bonnett qualified 15th, about mid-pack, but a quick, single-lap wasn't his measurement of greatness for the weekend. Two weeks earlier, he wheel-hopped the curb at Martinsville. Doing so caused his steering wheel to spin quickly to the right - so quickly that he didn't have a chance to loosen his grip. The spin snapped Bonnett's wrist and dislocated his thumb. He incredibly popped his thumb back into place while at speed, and finished the race in fifth place. Only after returning home to Alabama was he able to have the bones set and a cast applied. The awkwardness of the cast and persistent pain when racing were challenges he had to face, yet Neil did not miss a start.

When the green flag flew on Saturday May 12, Neil spent the first 20 percent of the race working himself methodically towards the front. He finally went to the point on lap 87 and led sizable chunks of laps throughout the race. When the night was done, he'd led 320 of the 420 laps - with a broken, throbbing right wrist.

With about 10 laps to go, Neil was being hounded by the #5 Chevy of Geoff Bodine. Two weeks earlier at Martinsville, Bodine won the first Cup race for himself and Hendrick Motorsports - the race in which Bonnett had broken his wrist. Bodine got past Bonnett, but Neil fought back in an effort to reclaim the lead. Instead, he spun himself out with seven to go.

Remarkably, Bonnett was able to gather his car and pit without losing too much track position. Bodine ducked in the pits as well knowing he'd have to race Neil hard again. The race resumed with three to go with Waltrip out front (who chose not to pit). Then all sorts of a mess broke out. Cup upstart Rusty Wallace trashed his Gatorade Pontiac coming out of turn two. Bobby Allison, the reigning Cup champion, got collected, caught fire, and drove in reverse down the backstretch through three and four and then down pit road.

Bonnett was humping it on the high side as he tried to catch Waltrip. Then the King inexplicably spun his STP Pontiac and Kyle Petty looped his car into the inner wall to avoid t-boning his father's 43.

Waltrip flashed under the starter's stand taking the white and yellow flags. He checked up some to make it through the debris from the wrecks yet maintained good speed. Bonnett still went full bore, caught DW in turn four, and nipped the 11 at the line. Waltrip, his crew, and the TV announcers initially believed DW was the winner because the caution had flown a lap earlier. Bonnett believed the track was essentially still 'green' because the yellow flew as the last lap started vs. at the end of the next to last lap. In that era, cars raced back to the line when a caution happened vs. the 'frozen field' model used today.

NASCAR's officials then went into Keystone Kops mode. They directed Bonnett to victory lane. Within a minute or so, they had Waltrip drive to victory lane and had Bonnett leave. But again within a few minutes they switched back to Bonnett as the winner. The collective set of officials seemed unable to determine when the yellow flag flew and what was permissible in terms of racing back to the finish line.

As the crowd left the stands and TV left the air, Bonnett was indeed in victory lane as Waltrip's team was left fuming.

Source: Gainesville Sun via Google News Archive

Interestingly, Warner Hodgon (in slacks and buttondown shirt and getting Waltrip's glare) was part of the winning and losing end of it all. He was a partial owner of both Bud teams as well as an investor in the track whose reputation was getting dinged because of NASCAR's ineptness. But the disputed finish would soon be the least of his concerns.

Waltrip wasn't finished. He defiantly protested the finish. Junior Johnson had the unenviable position of protesting the victory by his own car. (Such a protest by a car owner against another of his own cars wasn't unprecedented. Lee Petty protested his own son's win in 1959 at Lakewood Speedway.)

Three days later, NASCAR sided with Waltrip's protest and declared him the winner and moved Bonnett back to second.

Source: Hendersonville NC Times-News via Google News Archive

 

A young Dave Despain - with hair on his head but not on his face - featured highlights of the controversial race on his weekly racing magazine show, Motorweek Illustrated.

I remember the confusing finish, but I don't remember if I saw the race on TV or listened to it on MRN. I'm thinking it was likely the latter. I was away at college, and we didn't have a TV in our dorm room. We had a TV in the rec room, but I know no one would have allowed it to be dominated by a race on a Saturday night. The guys had more important things to watch ... such as music videos on MTV.

The Coors 420 is available as part of MRN's Classic Races Podcast series. The original broadcast can be heard below, at MRN's site, or streamed through MRN's iTunes channel.


Nashville Speedway put its hooks deep into me 40 years ago, and it's amazing to think 30 years have passed since this particular race was run. Back then, I toted fewer pounds and bigger dreams. I had visions of spending many future years watching Cup racing there. No way it could ever end ... or would it?

Hodgdon's non-racing financial situation took a quick tumble in the mid 80s. His fall was so precipitous that his racing interests were drawn into the abyss. Suddenly, Junior Johnson was faced with losing his two teams and life's work as a car owner. He was able to craft a deal to buy back Hodgdon's equity and get him out of the picture.

The fairgrounds track wasn't as fortunate. The track hosted its annual summer race in July. Bodine won the Pepsi 420, but his win turned out to be the final Cup race in Nashville. With many questions surrounding Hodgdon's finances, the long-term viability of the track, and other legal complications between the track and its landlord, the city of Nashville, NASCAR chose to withdraw its sanction after the 1984 races.

Racing continues to this day at my home track - and it's truly hard to believe three decades have passed since the final year of Cup racing. But at least The Fairgrounds' Cup days went out with a bang as two teammates had to scrap like foes to settle the score.

Big thanks to Russ Thompson for many of the photos and video clip! 

TMC