Ryan Preece doesn’t have sympathy for those in Music City complaining about noise when it comes to the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway
The NASCAR driver sat down with us on Whiskey Riff Raff to talk about his career, his famously aggressive racing strategy (and monster crashes), what it’s like to drive a stock car, the preparation that goes into it, and how he feels about his nicknames like “Flyin’ Ryan.”
The driver of the No. 60 car also described how heartbroken he and the NASCAR community are over the loss of the late, great Kyle Busch, detailed how he balances his home life and his work life, and gave his thoughts on racing in Music City. One of his strongest opinions in that department? That NASCAR should be racing at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.
There’s been rumblings of NASCAR returning to the Nashville Fairground ever since former Mayor John Cooper announced in 2021 that the city had signed a letter of intent with Bristol Motor Speedway to renovate the Fairgrounds Speedway, which hasn’t hosted a NASCAR Cup Series race since 1984.
Evidently, that’s still been a work in progress – or maybe even a work in limbo – all of these years later. Current Mayor Freddie O’Connell views the potential renovation as a low priority compared to other issues Music City faces, and has been hesitant to commit to restoring the Nashville Fairground Speedway due to taxpayer protection and noise complaints from the community.
However, there’s still a fanbase in Nashville, and a healthy contingent in the racing community that want NASCAR to return to the historic track. There’s also a healthy collection of NASCAR drivers, like Ryan Preece, who thinks the racing association should make the iconic raceway a mainstay in the schedule.
We asked Preece what he was hearing about it in the circles of NASCAR, and he admitted that there’s not a lot of rumblings on the matter at the moment. That being said, he was happy to offer up his own thoughts:
“I haven’t heard much on it as of right now, but I’m just gonna give you my personal opinion. If you move near a race track, that’s your problem. You made that decision. And there’s a whole lot of people that show up and support it. That place… I think they had the CARS tour there a few weeks back and it was packed. It’s an event that people want.”
Not only was it packed… it was a sold-out event.
That event brought energy to the “Could NASCAR return?” conversation. But it also fired up the constituents that believe racing at the fairgrounds is too disruptive. Ryan Preece doesn’t have a lot of patience when it comes to that argument:
“It’s so mind blowing that you know there’s a race track there, and then you move there, and then you are going to complain about the noise. Like, go move somewhere else. I wish we lived like it was probably 30 or 40 years ago where, if someone complained about noise, (the response) is like, ‘You chose to live here. This is your problem.'”
Agree or disagree? I think I’m on Ryan Preece’s side on this one.
You can hear about all of that and more from the NASCAR driver by checking out the interview on YouTube or making sure to download the podcast on Apple Podcasts by searching “Whiskey Riff Raff” or by clicking here.
We’re also available on Spotify and wherever else you can listen to podcasts.
Cheers, y’all.
