Catchfence

Sterling Marlin thinks his group has an offer Music City can’t refuse to save the historic short track where he started racing and where legends like Richard Petty, Fireball Roberts and Dale Earnhardt once competed furiously.
Marlin helped detail a proposal Thursday by Save My Fairgrounds to renovate Nashville’s fairgrounds and site of one of the nation’s oldest race tracks. Horses first raced here in 1891, and cars began running on the site as early as June 1904. NASCAR’s top level raced here until 1984 when Nashville officials refused to improve the track.

City officials have been working to relocate the 117-acre site away from the current location near downtown to revitalize the area with other development, and the track operator couldn’t get a yearlong contract for 2010. The state fair and monthly flea market is back for 2011 with no commitment to the track.

Marlin says the Nashville track has been a great proving ground that must be saved or risk having Bristol the only track in Tennessee where NASCAR races with questions about the future of the Nashville Superspeedway swirling.

“It’s the best race track in the country,” Marlin said of the fairgrounds track. “It’s the oldest race track, the best short track laid out ever. You can run side by side for 100 laps. It’s a great facility. I think if we would all get together it could be put back to the glory it used to be.”

Marlin, three-time NASCAR cup champ Darrell Waltrip and record company executive Mike Curb are among the investors wanting to renovate Nashville’s fairgrounds and save the .596-mile asphalt track. Waltrip didn’t attend the news conference but said in a statement the conditions around the Nashville Superspeedway give Nashville a chance for investment.

- USA Today