BRISTOL, Tenn. – The recent August race week brought an estimated 625,000 motorists in and around Bristol and Bristol Motor Speedway – less than last summer’s record count of 700,000 vehicles, city Traffic Engineer David Metzger said Thursday.
But Metzger said the presence of more campers, which usually contain numerous people who stay multiple days, was a big reason for last month’s lower traffic volume. He said that was a major departure from the August 2009 race week, which was dominated by mobs of “day parkers” – fans who headed to Bristol driving largely empty cars, arrived in town later and left sooner.
“Actually, this August was more in line with what our traffic count usually was for years and years, before 2009,” Metzger said. “Most years, we’d have a fairly even mix of campers and cars coming in. Now it looks like we’re getting back to that, based on what we saw this August.”
During the Aug. 18-21 race week – highlighted by Friday and Saturday night races at the Speedway – the city installed 13 electronic counters, set up at areas across Bristol and towards the Speedway, to monitor traffic flow.
Metzger said the counters revealed that 55 percent of the race week traffic was generated from three areas: Interstate 394 westbound, U.S. Highway 11E southbound, and northbound on Volunteer Parkway.
“That’s about the usual concentration of traffic we have in those areas, so it flowed pretty much how we expected in the [pre-race] traffic plan,” Metzger said. “So, overall we were very pleased with how everything turned out. Especially when you factor in how much it rained that week, and when it would rain.”
Metzger pointed to the rain’s mild effect on Bristol’s ability to clear traffic from the speedway after the feature Irwin Tools Night Race, which was held on a Saturday evening. He said it took three hours and six minutes to clear post-race traffic – slightly more than Bristol’s annual goal of two hours and 45 minutes to three hours.
“All that rainfall probably made it a little harder for people parked in campgrounds or dirt areas to maneuver out of the mud,” Metzger said.
The city traffic engineer said that for the third straight race week, Bristol Police didn’t cite or tow any vehicles for illegal parking around the speedway.
“I think we’ve officially got a streak going now, which is nice,” Metzger said.
Bristol City Manager Jeffrey Broughton echoed Metzger’s upbeat view of the city’s performance in handling the August race week. Broughton said he was happy with the overall vibe around town and the speedway during the event, which came only months after smaller crowds attended March’s race week.
“I thought the week went great,” Broughton said.
“We had busy campgrounds. We had large caravans of people. And we had lots of fans who were clearly enjoying their experience. So it was pretty much back to a usual Race Week in Bristol.”
rbrown@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2512
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