Anthony Farris
Videos by OutKick
If the Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS) has their way, a couple summers from now you’ll be able to leave your headphones at home when attending Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. The engine roars will be a little less loud, but the beer will be just as cold.
BMS has been in ongoing contract talks with Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway to hammer out a contract to improve the racetrack, targeting the 2023 race season for completion. Amongst the biggest improvements to the track would be a renovation that would cut the noise by 50 percent. Jerry Caldwell, the General Manager of BMS discussed the noise reduction with WKRN: “We can make a significant improvement to that sound impact on the community for all the motor sports events that take place out at the fairgrounds,” said Caldwell.
The main component in reducing the sound would be the installation of a sound mitigation wall on one of the raceway’s sides.
Caldwell continued: “This allows us to restore the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway to its rightful place and address some of these quality-of-life concerns with the community, but without us being involved in this plan then I don’t believe those things would happen”.
The quality-of-life concerns Caldwell alluded to are in reference to concerns expressed by community members who doubt BMS can realistically reduce the noise level so drastically. Heidi Basgall Favorite, a community member told WKRN why she remains skeptical: “If they could achieve a 50 percent reduction in sound for race cars or loud event venues, they’d be doing this all over the country. They’re trying to use buildings as sound mitigation. Well, that’s like bouncing a ping pong ball. It’s going to hit, and it’s going to bounce all over.”
Nashville and BMS are still in the design planning stages and are yet to determine a final price. Until the details and dollars are agreed upon, you should probably keep those headphones handy.
I used to live about 5 miles from the speedway and you could hear it pretty plain on Friday or Saturday nights.
Heidi Basgall sounds like an idiot, sound dampening is used inside just about every commercial building in the country, and every arena. Someone should bounce a ping pong ball off her head maybe.
By the way, I saw a couple gals pop ping pong balls out of their hoochies one night in Pattaya Beach, Thailand… they shot them all the way across the stage, that was a pretty good show.
This reminds me of the people that built houses in Bossier City in the mid 90s, and then called to complain about the noise from Barksdale AFB. Which has existed since the 1930s. Which has been home to the 8th Air Force since the 70s, and has THREE BOMBER WINGS OF B-52s. Each has eight engines of Freedom, baby, and they fly every day, nearly around the clock. And have been since long before you closed on your house.