If you are an OG BangShift reader, you’ll remember an item we used to run every Friday called the “Excuse to go home early and drink”. Well, since there is crappy news abounding these days, we’re bringing it back and this week the pain train pulls into Nashville, Tennessee. Dover Motorsports, the company that has successfully scuttled tracks in Memphis, Tennessee and St Louis, Missouri already, has now announced that they are killing off their facility in Nashville. This will leave the formerly powerful organization with one track left, Dover Downs in Delaware. Nice work dudes!
The track in Nashville is a 1.33 mile oval that comes equipped with 25,000 seats and “foundation work” done for a dirt oval, drag strip, and short asphalt track. The press release from Dover Motorsports writes that they will consider all options, including a sale of the property.
That sale option is historically the way they have gone. Dover sold Memphis Motorsports Park to a group of investors (the same dudes who revived Palm Beach International Raceway) and reportedly that same group is looking to buy Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis.
It sucks that they’ve shuttered the track, especially after leading two others to the grave by their own hand. The failures in Memphis, St Louis, and now Nashville seem to indicate that corporate management of “mid-level” facilities is not possible. Would they have fared better with local owners and promoters? Without the prospect of a NASCAR race date, will anyone buy Nashville? Will it sit and rot into the Earth, a forgotten monument to racing in the state of Tennessee?
We hope a local group steps up, promotes the hell out of the place and brings it back from the brink!
Me and my wife had our first date there on the opening race when they opened in 2001. Indy Lights race. Sad, they have a great infield road course too.
When ever you hear those three words togeather (group of investors ) That’s just code for bend over !!