A favorite track of NASCAR fans and drivers alike in the hills of Tennessee has acquired a bunch of nicknames through the years.
The World’s Fastest Half-Mile. Thunder Valley. The Last Great Colosseum.
You don’t need any of those, though. If you love it, it’s just Bristol.
Jeremy Clements loves it.
“I grew up racing dirt tracks that were high-banked,” he explained. “Cherokee Speedway, Bull’s Gap in Tennessee, Smoky Mountain Speedway, Crossville in Tennessee, that’s a real banked track. I guess just racing those tracks, I love the speed and the banking of them. Bristol just brings me back to my roots.”
Clements, who will bring the No. 51 JCR/Harrison’s Chevy to the line at Thunder Valley on Saturday, said Bristol even drives a bit like those old dirt speedways.
“That track’s like a dirt track,” he said. “I think I’ve said that before. It changes. The bottom is dominant at first, and then when we get the rubber laid down up top we can run right up by the wall. To me, that’s just so much fun. You’re running around there 15-second laps, that is blazing. It feels like you’re in a bowl, and you’re just hauling the mail, man. That’s what’s fun to me.”
Clements also loves the close, intimate feel that Bristol offers.
“The Colosseum feel,” he said. “That place, it always has an electric feel to it. Some weekends we might go to a track where we don’t have that because you’re not right there with the fans. Bristol gives us that feeling. That’s what I love about it, too.”
The close racing and high speeds offer a unique opportunity - and a unique challenge.
“You’re all so close together, but you have room, too,” he said. “That’s what’s fun about it. I like that you have room, versus Martinsville where you want that inside line and if you can’t get it, that’s when you’re going to get passed. Bristol, you can give up the inside and go to the top. That’s what makes it fun. You have options there.”
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