The long embattled Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway is facing yet another legal challenge, throwing into doubt its future in the racing sphere, courtesy of a group called ‘Restore Our Fairgrounds.’
The much-loved Fairgrounds has held motorsports events since 1904, with NASCAR taking to the venue for the first time in 1958. The Cup Series would go on to race at the just over half-mile long now-paved oval through 1984, with Richard ‘The King’ Petty unsurprisingly dominating a large portion of this period with a record nine series wins at the track.
While the Cup Series left following the 1984 season, the recently renamed O’Reilly’s Auto Parts Series continued to use the track, holding nine races from 1984 to 2000. The Craftsman Truck Series also continued to make the trip to Music City from 1996 until 2000.
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However, in 2001, the track was deemed surplus to requirements by NASCAR, which instead took to the recently opened Nashville Superspeedway as of 2001. Both the O’Reilly’s and Truck Series left the Superspeedway after 2011, before all three of NASCAR’s national series returned to the venue as of 2021…