How did this baseball field get built inside the Bristol Motor Speedway?
Bristol Motor Speedway - August 2025
From the Battle of Bristol to the Speedway Classic
On August 2nd of 2025, the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds faced off for a single game in front of 90,000 fans inside Bristol Motor Speedway.
They played on a field that didn’t exist just 2 months prior. But this project was years in the making.
The MLB and BrightView had been looking at this project after the success of 2016’s “Battle of Bristol”, where the University of Tennessee Volunteers and the Virginia Tech Hokies faced off inside the Bristol Motor Speedway.
Both fields for “Battle of Bristol” in 2016 and “Speedway Classic” in 2025 were built by the same heavy civil construction company, Baker’s Construction Services.
Regulation sized MLB field inside a NASCAR track
Baker’s Construction Services was contracted by Brightview to build the subgrade surface for the 2025 Speedway Classic game. Just like for the battle of Bristol, all the subgrade materials needed to be imported and finished layer by layer, but the footprint of this field was almost double that of the 2016 field.
The football field was an impressive 65,000 square feet, but the baseball field was 124,000 square feet. All of which needs to be built inside the speedway’s asphalt track and infield pit lane, all with one way in and out. Double the size means double the material required.
The Bristol Motor Speedway is also an active venue that needs to use that track space both before and after gameday. The window of construction was fixed, giving very little wiggle room for error, in fact only 2 months to build a regulation sized baseball field.
The material, equipment, and precision required
Chad Baker, President of BCS, is no stranger to tough jobs and tight schedules, he has built a heavy civil company with a reputation of speed and accuracy in his work.
In the first week, over of 950 dump truck loads of stone were brought though the one-way gate at turn 3, roughly 19,000 tons of material.
The subgrade was constructed out of 57’s, 8’s finished within a 100th, and then a 1/4” layer of 10’s.
With the use of two CAT D6XE’s with GPS and UTS robots from Trimble guided by total stations, each layer of stone was placed in quick succession.
They were rolled then finished by a CAT 14M Motor grader before the next layer was built.
Baker’s in-house survey crew
The BCS crews also installed a flat underdrain system to allow for quick removal of rainwater on the field surface.
The infield and base for the walls were all graded with a CAT 285 equipped with grader blade and UTS robotics.
With the Baker’s inhouse survey team on site, they could monitor accuracy to the models very closely. That team was crucial for maintaining plan accountability and keeping the site flowing.
BCS used Trimble total stations to run two dozers, the motor grader, and the skid steer simultaneously at times through out the project.
Working with Brightview and Astroturf
BCS was able to build the subgrade and turn over the project to the Astroturf team a week earlier than expected, providing more breathing room for all subsequent teams.
This project took a tremendous amount of coordination between all the companies involved. While BCS was building the field subgrade, Populous and BaAM were getting ready to assemble walls, seats, dugouts, fan zones, and other periphery support structures.
After the subgrade was ready, AstroTurf and Brightview moved in to finish the turf, infield, and final details.
Maintaining good communication for a productive flow of logistics was extremely important. All the crews worked together well and were able to build a fantastic end product.
Keeping our customers happy with quality work for over 40 years
“They are a great team, and that's why they've been doing work for us for 30 years.”
Steve Swift - Bristol Motor Speedway
“These guys are top notch. They're the best.”
Shane Harkey - AstroTurf
“We couldn't be happier with all the work that they put into this!”
Murray Cook - Brightview