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The NASCAR circus heads to Texas Motor Speedway, which is typically met with a collective groan from the NASCAR fanbase. What is it that causes this disdain amongst the fanbase? Well, it’s a very complicated story that goes all the way back to the track’s founding.
In 1997, Bruton Smith began expanding his race track empire by building Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. Fit with over 200,000 seats, the track was meant to be a palace of Motorsports, and it tapped into a market that NASCAR was keen on investing in. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of many hardcore fans.
Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre both came together to purchase North Wilkesboro Speedway in the mid-1990s, but, neither businessman had any interest in the track itself. They bought the track for the two Cup Series race dates that it possessed. Bahre took one date and moved it to New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which he owned, and Smith took the other date to his new Texas Motor Speedway. For more on this purchase, check out the article below.
While Texas Motor Speedway was an easy track to say yes to from a business perspective, it came at the expense of a beloved venue that many hardcore fans came to love. This turned many hardcore fans away, and it was a tough blow to the people of North Wilkesboro
Throughout the 2000s, Texas Motor Speedway races were big-time events. Crowds in excess of 200,000 were commonplace throughout the early 2000s, and NASCAR rewarded those loyal fans with a second date on the calendar for 2005.
However, the track itself was quite forgettable. It was a 1.5-mile quad-oval with almost the same shape and exactly the same banking as Charlotte Motor Speedway. Nothing made the track stick out against the “Cookie cutter” intermediate tracks that popped up throughout the 1990s.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad race track, and it put on some good races. However, it also produced some snoozefests. The fans watching on TV just weren’t excited about Texas Motor Speedway, and the crowds slowly dwindled throughout the 2010s showing that the paying customer wasn’t too thrilled with it either.
Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, fans didn’t hate the track, they were just indifferent to it. As far as NASCAR tracks went it was certainly one of them, and SMI tried to fix that for the 2017 season.
SMI and Texas Motor Speedway decided to experiment in 2017 by reconfiguring Texas Motor Speedway. The track was repaved and banking was reduced in turns 1 and 2 from 24 to 20 degrees, but, turns 3 and 4 remained at 24 degrees. It was an interesting idea that gave the track a more distinguished feature, but, it didn’t work.
Whereas the old Texas had the saving grace of multiple grooves, which often created some compelling racing, the new track was 1-1.5 grooves wide. The races there became more of a glorified, high-speed parade than an actual race.
Between 2019 and 2021, the high downforce, high drag aero package made the racing even worse as following another car was almost impossible.
In 2022, the Next-Gen car was introduced. While the car generally raced well at most intermediates, the 2022 races were both hated by the fans. The All-Star Race was flat-out boring with a controversial finish, and the fall race was marred by accidents and tire failures. Alex Bowman was injured and knocked out of the Playoffs thanks to a crash in the 2022 fall race at Texas.
Texas Motor Speedway tried to fix the issues by putting PJ1 down in the corners, but, that didn’t work. It actually made the upper lane impossible for IndyCars to race up there, which ruined the IndyCar product there for a few years.
Hopefully, Texas Motor Speedway will be able to redeem itself, but, we will have to see. Could Texas Motor Speedway turn it around?
