Put Texas Motor Speedway Out Of Its Misery

“That belongs in a museum!” – Henry Jones Jr., “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”

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Amid all of the NASCAR memorabilia I own, I have a specific collection.

It’s made up of three diecasts, a hat, a program, a license plate, a collectable pin, a special issue of the Denton Record-Chronicle and a large poster that hangs on my bedroom wall.

The poster is simple. Topped by the title “Inaugural Season of Speed,” it shows a wide shot of Dale Jarrett leading the field across the start-finish line to begin lap 1 in the first NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, held on April 6, 1997, under blue skies and in front of a jam-packed crowd.

My inaugural #NASCAR Cup race at @TXMotorSpeedway collection is coming along well.

Still need the @sambassartist poster, a bumper sticker, a pin set and who knows what else. pic.twitter.com/xg9lqbSkrJ

— Daniel McFadin (@danielmcfadin) December 26, 2021

The crowd is significant. The picture doesn’t show the fans in the backstretch grandstands.

Roughly 150,000 seats, not counting suites and the infield, were sold for the race.

Within a few years, additional grandstands — now gone — were built in the turns on both ends of the track. They would be filled too.

For a brief period, the only racetrack in the country that had more seats than Bruton Smith’s track in North Texas was Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The 1.5-mile track was a jewel. It was a destination. Aside from the catastrophic first-lap crash in 1997, it put on good racing.

On that April day 25 years ago, I was among the roughly 150,000 in attendance, my six-year-old self sitting with my dad in the metal bleachers just above the exit to turn 4.

For both of us, it was our first NASCAR race ever.

In my quarter-century of following and covering motorsports, outside of Charlotte Motor Speedway, Texas is the track I’ve attended the most races at, both NASCAR and IndyCar. My dad and I went to two of Texas’ first three Cup races. We even attended a cancelled CART race.

As a native Texan who got his first taste of racing there and has a mini-shrine to the 1997 Interstate Batteries 500 in a cabinet, I have an unquestioned soft spot for Texas Motor Speedway.

But I have no hesitation when I say: burn it to the ground.

Or, as defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Larson said last Saturday (Sept. 24) when asked what should be done with the track: “I would like them to demolish this place first and start over from scratch. […]…