In 2001, Bristol and UDTRA teamed up again for another round on the dirt. When the series returned to Bristol, it returned with a new name. The UDTRA Pro DirtCar Series rolled into Bristol without the Hav-A-Tampa sponsorship.
McDowell looked back and thought the preparation by everyone at Bristol and UDTRA made the event another vibrant success. They also saw a big difference, that being weather. McDowell recalled that the track crew did a few things different to prepare with the significant weather changes of the previous year.
“There’s a huge misconception. Working a race track is a lot like these setups on these cars, sometimes you do everything the same and there’s just different conditions and it reacts different and the same way with our race cars,” McDowell said.
In the 2001 Bristol event, McDowell came back and had three-straight top-10 finishes during a weekend that featured three main events which were won by Scott Bloomquist (twice) and Jimmy Mars.
The magnitude of the crowd at the first race shocked not only the rest of the dirt late model world, but winner McDowell.
“It was pretty awesome really, a huge crowd. That was the biggest crowd, over 45,000 people there at that point and time,” McoDwell said.
McDowell talked about what the significance the first Bristol dirt race did for his racing career.
“Something that had as much fame behind it as Bristol had, and to be able to go up there and be a part of an event like that was huge for us and the whole dirt late model industry, but to be able to win it was really big for us. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years ago (McDowell chuckled) it doesn’t seem like that long ago but it was a lot of fun. I think it introduced a lot of people to the sport and it got so much hype building up to that race,” McDowell said. “I was the (Hav-A-Tampa) champion in ’99 so I got to do a lot of the advertising stuff for that race and so we went up and did some stories. I met Bruton Smith (Bristol Motor Speedway owner) up there prior to that race. They were doing a lot of promoting so we was able to do a lot of cool stuff leading up to it and then for us to win it was unbelievable.”
Cook was a hard charger in that inaugural Bristol event. He moved from his 27th starting spot to finish ninth in the final rundown. It was also a busy few weeks for the driver who had just won the Show Me 100 in Missouri five days earlier.
“Bristol was an exciting deal, I don’t know of anything that compares to it or nothing really since then, it was a big deal,” said Cook, who ran both years on the dirt at Bristol. “I didn’t know what to think, it was overwhelming from having to park outside the track and get all of our equipment in the infield, it was totally different for us.”
Was the first Bristol race a pinnacle moment for dirt racing? McDowell seems to think so.
“I think that was a huge step to where we are today, simply because it got people to look at dirt late model racing in a different way,” McDowell said. “If a place as well-known and as famous as Bristol would put on an event for these guys then obviously there’s a market for it and the race fans are interested in it. I think it was huge. Once we started doing that, more big events started growing roots simply because the race fans supported it so much that these other promoters and these other venues would look at the demographics they had in their areas and started putting together events like that.”
Cook felt the inaugural running of Bristol was one of the turning points for dirt racing.
“If we would have had the media coverage back then that we have today it would have no doubt been the biggest thing, it was a big deal,” said Cook. “We was one of the three classes running at Bristol and it not only threw late model racing but dirt racing in general into the spotlight because it showcased the three biggest classes we have in my opinion.
“I wished it could have continued.”
Multiple sources speculate as to why dirt racing didn’t return to Bristol after 2001. Among them are stories of the inaugural Eldora Million spoiling the party to stories of the sprint car drivers refusing to come back because of the high speeds.
One thing is for sure, the inaugural dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway will go down in history as one of the most highly publicized and successful events the dirt late model industry has ever seen.