• Bristol Motor Speedway was built five miles (8 km) down the road on Highway 11-E in Bristol in 1961. The land was used as a dairy farm before building Bristol Motor Speedway.
• In 1990 one of Bristol's 2 cars driven by Michael Waltrip hit the turn 2 wall.
• The track was reshaped in the fall of 1969. The turns were banked at 36 degrees and it became a 0.533-mile (0.858 km) oval.
• In 1978 the track was renamed as Bristol International Raceway. In August of that year, the first night race was held on the oval, one that would become one of the most popular events on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series calendar.
• On April 1, 1982 Lanny Hester sold his half of the speedway to Warner Hodgdon.
• On January 11, 1985, Hodgdon filed for bankruptcy. Afterwards, Larry Carrier formally took possession of the speedway and covered all outstanding debts.
• In the early 1990s, the infield was reconfigured, and completely paved..
• In 1992, the speedway asphalt surface was switched to the concrete surface it is now famous for.
• On Jan. 22, 1996, Larry Carrier sold the speedway to Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (SMI), at a purchase price of $26 million. At the time of the sale, the facility seated 71,000.
• On May 28 1996, the track’s name was officially changed to Bristol Motor Speedway.
• By August, 15,000 seats had been added bringing the seating capacity to 86,000.
• BMS continued to grow and by April 1997 was the largest sports arena in Tennessee and one of the largest in the country, seating 118,000. The speedway also boasted 22 new skyboxes. For the August 1998 Goody’s 500 the speedway featured more than 131,000 grandstand seats and 100 skyboxes. Improvements to the speedway since Smith took possession are in excess of $50 million. Under Smith's ownership, all seating sections have been renamed for past race winners and NASCAR champions.
• The capacity for the Food City 500 in March 2000 was 147,000 as the Kulwicki Terrace and Kulwicki Tower were completed.
• A Guinness World Record was set in August 2008 when the sell-out crowd completed the largest crowd-wave in history.
• Another World Record was set it August 2009 for the largest karaoke with a sold out crowd. Later, when the race was red flagged, the crowd performed the wave again, apparently tying the world record.
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