Pride Of The Southland Band Represents Vols At Bristol

Tennessee’s “Pride of The Southland Band” took the track on Saturday evening, before the famous night race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Bristol Motor Speedway, which is just under two hours away from Knoxville, will be the site of what is expected to be the most attended college football game of all time.

The “Battle at Bristol” will be played between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Virginia Tech Hokies and will take place on September 10, 2016.

Oct 14, 2013; Knoxville, TN, USA; A general view of a mockup of Bristol Motor Speedway before the announcement that the Tennessee Volunteers and Virginia Tech Hokies will play a football game on Sep. 10, 2016 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

I would like to tell you that it will be the first college football game played at a NASCAR sanctioned racetrack, but that’s not the case.

The Winston-Salem State Rams play their home games each week at the famous Bowman Gray Stadium.

Bowman Gray hosted NASCAR Grand National (now the Sprint Cup Series) races from 1958-1971. The track saw historic drivers such as Richard Petty, David Pearson, Junior Johnson and Bobby Allison win races. It is still, to this day, a NASCAR sanctioned track.

The stadium capacity, however, at Bowman Gray is 20,000. That’s slightly less than the 160,000 that Bristol holds.

The “Battle at Bristol” is expected to easily best the all-time attendance record for a college football game (Notre Dame @ Michigan, 115,109).