A quarter-century after its inaugural Cup Series race, the Track That Bruton Built is a very different place from the speedway that saw its first green flag fly for a NASCAR Cup race in 1997.
Imagine your boss telling you to pack up, go out to the Texas plains and build a speedway. A very big speedway.auto racing tycoon and builder of speedways, in the mid-1990s. NASCAR was roaring in those years, its attendance figures bulging and its television numbers ringing bells. The speedway’s opening race weekend, which ended with a Cup race April 6, 1997, was the opposite of a “grand” opening. Rain drenched the speedway area most of race week, turning parking lots into messy mudpits and cramping the style of Gossage, who had made extravagant plans to unveil his masterpiece to the racing world.
Part of the problem stemmed from the track’s unusual design, which was supposed to be welcoming to both stock cars and Indy cars. Instead, the problem swelled. Drivers continued to moan. T-shirts reading “Shut Up and Drive” went on sale at the track.RacingOneJeff Burton won the first Cup race and, after the second NASCAR weekend at the speedway, the track was reconfigured to make the banking a constant 24 degrees instead of the variable banking in the original design.
• In April 2001 qualifying for the Firestone Firehawk 600 CART race, Kenny Brack turned a lap at 233.447 miles per hour. It was fast—too fast. Drivers complained about dizziness, and CART postponed the race two hours before the scheduled green flag because of safety concerns. The speedway sued CART over the decision, but the two parties reached a settlement later in the year.
Track president Eddie Gossage and Bruton Smith celebrate the opening of Tony Stewart Bridge at Texas.• In 2005, Eddie Gossage named a new overpass at the speedway the Tony Stewart Bridge, a humorous nudge at the champion driver. Later, Stewart named a tunnel at Eldora Speedway for Gossage.