About 20,000 fans scattered in stands for Bristol race
BRISTOL, Tenn. – In an unprecedented sports year, Bristol Motor Speedway was the capital of strange Wednesday night.
Bristol had one of the smallest crowds in its almost 60-year history. A crowd that, at the same time, perhaps marked the largest attendance at a U.S. sports event since the coronavirus stopped virtually all sports in March.
It was that kind of strange on a muggy evening in the eastern Tennessee mountains.
NASCAR ran its annual All-Star Race before a crowd estimated at 20,000 on Bristol’s high-banked short track. Anxious to admit a significant number of fans but also aware of the possibility of crowds accelerating the spread of the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, officials limited All-Star ticket sales to 30,000. The cavernous facility can seat more than 160,000.
Despite restrictions and limitations, fans were excited to be back within sight and sound of motor sports as Chase Elliott cruised to his first victory in the AllStar event.
“The only place I’d be tonight,” said Betsy Taylor of Knoxville, Tennessee, whose apparel identified her as a Kyle Busch fan. “Watching on television has been all right, but nothing beats being here. It’s not as much fun as when this place was packed, but right now we take what we can get.”
Across Highway 11E from the track, fans roamed through a group of souvenir tents, a prerace shopping ritual for many. The crowd there was smaller, too, and there were fewer proprietors.
Janice Thornton, holding a newly purchased Kevin Harvick cap, said she and her family drove from Roanoke, Virginia, to see what she called “real racing” at the NASCAR Cup level.
Although many fans in the souvenir area were not wearing masks, the lines of spectators waiting to enter the track showed practically universal compliance with the mask requirement.
Several fans expressed no fear of the possibility of being infected. Statewide the number of active cases of COVID-19 have continued to rise.
“There is no way I’d be over there in the middle of all those people,” said Lawrence Walters of nearby Kingsport. “Hanging around in a small crowd is OK, but when you get up in the thousands it seems to me like a risk I shouldn’t take. I have a TV at home.”
The crowd, scattered around the grandstands like dandelion seeds spread by the wind, looked anemic. In this case, small was big, as in a big step for sports as the athletic world struggles to return to some sense of normalcy.
Fans were seated in small bunches in the stadium version of social distancing. They were required to wear face masks in all areas of the property except while seated. All tickets were handled digitally, as were transactions at concession stands, in attempts to limit physical contact. Officials reported no issues at track entrances.