Nashville Superspeedway

Nashville Superspeedway is a motor racing complex located in Gladeville, Tennessee (though the track has a Lebanon address), United States, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Nashville. The track was built in 2001 and is currently used for events, driving schools and "GT Academy", a reality television competition. The facility is slated to host a NASCAR Cup race on June 20, 2021.
It is a concrete oval track 1 miles (2.145 km) long. Nashville Superspeedway is owned by Dover Motorsports, Inc., which also owns Dover International Speedway. Nashville Superspeedway was the longest concrete oval in NASCAR during the time it was on the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series circuits. Current permanent seating capacity is approximately 25,000. Additional portable seats are brought in for some events, and seating capacity can be expanded to 150,000. Infrastructure is in place to expand the facility to include a short track, drag strip, and road course.
History.
At its peak, the facility hosted four major races each year: two NASCAR Xfinity Series races and two NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series races (one per year prior to 2010). The IndyCar Series Firestone Indy 200 was run at the track from its opening until 2008. Each feature event was usually accompanied by a companion event from lower-tier series such as ARCA and Indy Lights. NASCAR continually showed little interest in staging a NASCAR Cup Series race at the track.
In October 2009, Dover Motorsports decided to close Memphis Motorsports Park, and the Memphis Truck race originally scheduled for late June 2010 was moved to Nashville Superspeedway on April 2, one day prior to the annual Nationwide Series race at the track. The April Truck race was known as the "Nashville 200". Nashville Superspeedway became the only facility on the circuit to host two Truck Series races without hosting a NASCAR Cup event.
As is a Nashville metropolitan tradition, specially-designed Gibson Les Paul guitars are presented to race winners in place of conventional trophies. The track also has a reputation for producing many first-time winners.
The track is referred by the classic term of a "superspeedway" (a track of one mile (1.6 km) or longer, compared to a short track), and is named to differentiate itself from the .596 mile Fairgrounds Speedway (previously known as Nashville Speedway USA) at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds near downtown Nashville. Until 1984, Nashville Speedway USA had conducted a pair of 420-lap Cup races, but NASCAR pulled its sanctioning license from the circuit after disputes over who would manage the track took place prior to the start of the 1985 season.
Closure.
Following sluggish attendance for major events and no prospects of gaining a Cup Series event, Dover Motorsports announced that the track would not seek NASCAR sanctions in 2012, effectively shutting it down, on August 3, 2011. In the announcement, Dover also hinted that the track was up for sale. The track remained available for private use, such as car and tire testing.
The track also remained available, and has been used, as a filming location for various television and film projects. Starting in 2012, Nashville Superspeedway was used for testing by NASCAR teams.
Attempted sale.
On May 29, 2014, it was announced that NeXovation, Inc. would be purchasing the racetrack and all assets and equipment from Dover Motorsports for $27 million. However, the deal never materialized and Dover Motorsports reopened the sale of the track on July 28, 2015. NeXovation had invested $2.9 million (mostly nonrefundable) into the track, mostly in deadline extensions, and Dover pulled out of the sale after another deadline was missed and no payment was received. The deal with NeXovation was ultimately canceled, though the company lost approximately $2.9 million dollars in earnest money.<ref name="/panattonisale"></ref>
On August 25, 2016, Dover announced it had reached an agreement to sell the property to Panattoni Development Company in a $44.7 million deal. Panattoni planned to convert the site into a distribution and logistics park, the primary usage of commercial real estate in the area. In 2018 the deal was reduced to a portion of the property only, with another being sold in 2019; Panattoni also held an option on an additonal to be exercised before 2022.
Reopening.
On June 2, 2020, reports began to surface that Nashville Superspeedway would reopen in 2021 and would host a NASCAR Cup Series race, with a date of Sunday, June 20. The race would replace one of the two races the series runs at Dover International Speedway, which is also owned by Dover Motorsports. On June 3, NASCAR confirmed that the track will reopen to host a Cup race in 2021, replacing one of the two Dover dates. The track brought on sports management executive Erik Moses as track president in August 2020 ahead of the reopening. The race will be called the Ally 400. On March 23, 2021, Goodyear hosted a tire test at the track. Each manufacturer was represented, with Christopher Bell (Toyota), Chase Briscoe (Ford), and Kurt Busch (Chevrolet) turning laps around the track.