BRISTOL, Tenn. – Forget NASCAR. It’s the cornhole game or bust for the likes of Craig Tolliver and family.
The husband, wife, and daughter Tolliver clan trekked nearly five hours from Ashton, W.Va., just to play this oddly named, and surprisingly popular, bag-toss game under the Bristol Motor Speedway’s shadow Friday.
“Get drunk, play cornhole, and have a good time,” is how freight broker Craig Tolliver explained it.
The prize money is pretty tempting, too. Craig Tolliver pocketed a $100 bill at the end of one tournament.
Red and black bean bags crisscrossed in high arcs from morning until evening Friday as nearly 200 people vied for the winner’s circle in the inaugural Thunder Valley Cornhole Classic.
The entry fees go to the tournament’s organizer, the Bristol Chapter of the Speedway Children’s Charities.
The scene is scheduled for a repeat today as cornhole players compete for cash and speedway season suite tickets.
Cornhole is a lot like playing horseshoes, just without all the metal flying through the air.
“It’s an easy game to learn,” said Dyana Tolliver, freight company clerk and wife in the Tolliver clan. She is ranked as the nation’s top female cornhole player by the American Cornhole Organization.
The game is simple: A one-pound bag, traditionally filled with corn kernels, is slung at a slanted board with a 6-inch hole near the top. Points are awarded when the bag either drops through the hole or lands and stays on the board.
Horseshoes used to be the yard game of choice for the Tollivers, until the accident nearly three years ago.
“My daughter got hit smack between the eyes and had to get stitches in her head,” Craig Tolliver said. “That was it for horseshoes.”
Still bearing the scar on her forehead is 13-year-old Shelby, who said she never felt the horseshoe slam into her. But she does remember the trickle of blood and the hospital visit.
Soon after the horseshoes were ditched, a family member brought over a cornhole board.
“We just started playing in our yard and then we wanted to go to a tournament,” Dyana said.
So, they tossed a few bags in competition play and, to their chagrin, discovered they weren’t the best darned cornholers this side of the Mississippi.
That meant just one thing, Dyana said: “We had to practice.”
Cornhole boards have cropped up at campgrounds and tailgate parties nationwide in recent years. Bristol is no different. The boards have been a regular site all week at the campgrounds surrounding the speedway.
Boards come in a plain, wood grain color, brightly painted, or even bedecked in NASCAR team colors.
It’s seductively simple. The game is so enchanting that newcomers are willing to plop down the $40 a team entry fee at first glance.
“There’s definitely some people who came just to have fun ... they’ve never played before,” said Shannon Smelley, of the Bristol Chapter of the Speedway Children’s Charities.
There might be some ringers in the tournament other than Dyana Tolliver.
“I think there are some people here who are professionals at this,” BMS president and general manager Jeff Byrd said as he watched a tournament.
According to the rumors, Byrd said, some of the top-ranked cornholers might show.
mowens@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2549
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