STOCK CAR MAGAZINE ARTICLE - AUGUST 2008

Bristol Motor Speedway - A Track Like No Other

The Writer Takes On The High Banks Of Bristol Motor Speedway And Gains Newfound Respect For Drivers

writer: Rick Houston
photographer: Angee Lee

 

Let it be here and forevermore known that I apologize.

I apologize to every single driver I've ever insisted on interviewing immediately after a race at Bristol Motor Speedway. I apologize to every driver I've ever mocked for having trouble there, including, if not especially Ken Alexander, who was once involved in no less than five accidents during a long-ago Busch Series event at Bristol.

It seemed oh-so comical that afternoon in the press box ... No. 63 car, Turn 4 ... 63 car, frontstretch ... 63 car, backstretch ... 63 car ... 63 car ... poor guy. It couldn't possibly be that hard to drive this place, could it?

Bristol is, after all, just another short track. Somebody once compared racing at Bristol to flying jet fighters in a school gymnasium. Somebody else said it was like rolling marbles around the inside of a cereal bowl. The analogies made for good copy, but it really wasn't all that difficult. Yeah, the turns are banked pretty steep, but what's the big deal? They're racers, and they should be able to handle it.

Oh, just shut up already.

Could there possibly be a more difficult track in all of NASCAR to negotiate? Nope, no way, and if there is, I don't know that I would want any part of it. Sure, road courses are probably more technically demanding, but that's different. That's way different. Your mind messes with you on a road course ... downshift here, turn right there, shift again, turn left.

Bristol is a completely different universe. Here, you're on the straightaway for, what, a half a second before you drive off the side of a cliff. You hang there in the impossibly banked turns, G-forces slamming your body hard into the right-side rib protector, your hands twitching this way and that on the steering wheel.

Finally, mercifully, you're out of the turn and onto another straightaway. You can breathe and relax, but almost before your mind can even register it, you're headed straight for the wall that is the next turn. This place is crazy stupid.

And that's just for the 50 laps or so of a session at DriveTech at The Racing School. 500 laps? With 42 other cars? Forget it. It's quite possible that the most amazing thing about any driver's performance at Bristol isn't quite so much that they actually completed a race, but that they're able to coherently talk about it afterward.

What They Do Right
Mark Ebert once sold insurance, but come Monday morning meetings, he noticed he was the only one there with grease under his fingernails. Ebert had been operating a driving school at Thompson (Connecticut) International Speedway part-time for a couple of years, and he had a choice to make.

Was he going to expand the school and go full time, or was he going to sit in an office for the rest of his life? The Attleboro, Massachusetts, resident took the school full time in 2001, and today, DriveTech at The Racing School offers classes at nearly 20 short tracks and superspeedways across the country.

It doesn't take long to notice differences between this and some of the other driving schools that are available. First, DriveTech at The Racing School sessions are laid back, even when struck by inclement weather. Nobody seemed to panic, and nobody tried to rush class participants onto or off of the track in order to beat approaching rain, which eventually put an end to activities altogether.

The mood translated to participants, some of whom were forced to reschedule their sessions for months down the road. Sure, they were disappointed, but understood. Others could come back the next day, and amazingly enough, were able to start their laps all over again.

A good PR move? You betcha.

Another HUGE plus for Ebert's group is its use of in-car radios. Instructors can communicate with students, but not vice versa, and that's fine. Most students-the sane ones, at any rate-are far too busy worrying about not busting their rumps to be concerned with finding the "talk" button.

Such communication allows for instruction that's easy to understand. Here, there's no need for an instructor to ride shotgun. At Bristol, you don't have time to watch an instructor's hand signals, keep an eye on the track, and drive anything even remotely resembling a smooth and consistent lap. Coaching is kept to a minimum, and in the simplest of terms ... lift and move left. Good job. Move up a little bit. That's it.

Really, in retrospect, it just seems to be a much safer way of doing things for students and the guinea-pig instructors who at other schools have to hang on for dear life while in the passenger's seat.

From the very first laps on the track, students are taught how to deal with other cars. Sent out in groups of four, the tail-end car is not given clearance to pass the first three until he has had the chance to learn to pass. The warm-up session is also the only one in which students have to follow a pace vehicle.

Another plus. A big plus.

Finally, Michael Edwards has to be one of the classiest kids around. He and dad Scotty are from Richmond, and race Legends together when they're not both working with Ebert at his school. Michael patiently helped me into and out of my assigned car, and then helped buckle me in.

When I land my first driving contract with Hendrick Motorsports, Michael is going to be my crew chief.

What They Could Do Better

Mess up and it's going to cost you.

Flat-spot the  tires on the car you're driving, and they're yours. At the moment, brand-new tires are 416 bucks each. If they've been used, the cost is prorated, down to a minimum charge of $75 a tire. That's just if you spin.

It's a whole other ballgame if you actually hit something. For around $60, you can get an insurance waiver with a $1,000 deductible-evidently, in Ebert's case, you can take the man out of the insurance business, but you can't take the insurance business out of the man.
Still, give Ebert credit for being up front about the policy. Liability for accidents at other schools is rarely, if ever, mentioned. Maybe it's in the fine print at other places, but not here.

Personally, I passed on the waiver, and it was the only thing that came close to taking even the slightest edge off the DriveTech at The Racing School experience. Ebert and I rolled off into Turn 1 during a side-by-side exercise, and for the briefest of moments, I wondered how I was going to present SCR with a bill for the damage I was about to do.

I lifted.