It’s not the first time ‘The Last Great Colosseum’ has been covered in dirt however. It was done at the turn of the century, but never before for a NASCAR event.
The last Cup race on dirt took place at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, N.C. on September 30th, 1970.
It took 23,000 cubic yards of dirt to make the Bristol Dirt Track a reality, battling through rain and snow in the months of January and February to get the job done.
One of the biggest challenges will be keeping moisture in the track, which has taken several thousand gallons of water.
“We’ve shallowed it up and we will be at 19 degrees when it is all said and done. The thickest fills will be 9- and 10-feet and our smallest fill will be a foot,” said said Steve Swift, owner Speedway Motorsports’ senior vice president of operations and development.
“It’s never a great time to place dirt in the middle of the winter. So far we’ve been blessed. We are way ahead of where we thought we would be with the weather and we are on schedule and pushing forward.”
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