Fairgrounds Speedway
Fairgrounds Speedway is an independent racetrack located at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds near downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The track is the second oldest continually operating track in the United States. The track held NASCAR Grand National/Winston Cup (now Sprint Cup Series) races from 1958 to 1984.
Track configuration
The speedway is currently an 18 degree banked paved oval. The track is 0.596-mile (0.959 km) long. Inside the larger oval is a quarter-mile paved oval.
The track was converted to a half-mile paved oval in 1957, when it began to be a NASCAR series track. The speedway was lengthened between the 1969 and 1970 seasons. The corners were cut down from 35 degrees to their present 18 degrees in 1972. The track was repaved between the 1995 and 1996 seasons.
Track history
The track first featured "horseless carriages" and motorcycles on June 11, 1904, on a 1 1/8 (1.125) mile dirt oval. Races were canceled after a motorcycle ran into the back of a car that was lining up. Harness horse racing events were also held at the track.
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. Nashville is the second largest city in Tennessee, after Memphis, and is the fourth largest city in the Southeastern United States. It is located on the Cumberland River in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the music, healthcare, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home to numerous colleges and universities. Reflecting the city's position in state government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee. It is known as a center of the music industry, earning it the nickname "Music City".
Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government which includes six smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. Thirty-five of 40 members are elected from single-member districts; five are elected at-large. According to 2013 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, the total consolidated city-county population stood at 659,042. The "balance" consolidated population, which excludes the semi-independent municipalities and is the figure listed in most demographic sources and national rankings, was 634,464. The 2013 population of the entire 13-county Nashville metropolitan area was 1,757,912, making it the largest metropolitan statistical area in the state. The 2013 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area, a larger trade area, was 1,876,933.
Coors 420
The Coors 420 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series stock car race held at Nashville International Raceway.
