MLB and NASCAR ambassadors discuss Speedway Classic

The 2025 MLB Speedway Classic is just over a month away, and the process of transforming Bristol Motor Speedway from a racetrack to a baseball field has begun.

Construction is underway at Tennessee’s iconic NASCAR track in preparation for the one-of-a-kind Major League game between the Braves and Reds on Aug. 2. Soon, The Last Great Colosseum will be ready to host Ronald Acuña Jr., Elly De La Cruz and other MLB stars for the first time.

Ambassadors from MLB and NASCAR — including Braves legend Andruw Jones, three-time Reds All-Star Sean Casey, longtime outfielder Nick Swisher, NASCAR driver and 2023 Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and former driver and two-time Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip — gathered on Wednesday at MLB headquarters in New York to talk about how the Speedway Classic is bringing together the worlds of baseball and NASCAR.

“We’re bringing a couple of NASCARs of our own: Elly De La Cruz and Ronald Acuña Jr. — with the speed, the power, the whole nine,” Swisher said. “So I think we’re doing a pretty good job of bringing two great fan bases together. The NASCAR world and the MLB world could not be a better fit together.”

Bristol is about halfway between Atlanta and Cincinnati, but the Braves have been big among Tennessee baseball fans since Jones’ days playing for the great Atlanta teams of the 1990s. So Jones is expecting a big turnout.

“You can call it Braves country, to be honest with you,” Jones said. “We built a big fanbase. We started by playing good baseball for a long time, and we built all these fans. Those fans are gonna show up.

“We hosted some of those NASCAR Nights at the stadium back in the day, at Turner Field, a bunch of times. A lot of those NASCAR guys are big Braves fans. So we’re looking forward to it. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of fans out there rooting for the Braves.”

Casey compared the Speedway Classic to some of the unique experiences of his career, like getting to play in front of over 115,000 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 2008, when his Red Sox faced the Dodgers in an exhibition commemorating the 50-year anniversary of the Dodgers’ move to L.A.

“I hope that the Braves players and the Reds players really lean into that,” Casey said. “Man, you’re two teams that are getting to experience Bristol and this historic track and play a baseball game that none of the other 28 teams will get to appreciate.”

Bristol Motor Speedway is a unique venue for a unique game. The track is known for its short oval with high banking, which makes for exciting races different from the ones you’ll see at other tracks, with drivers ripping around those steep corners at speeds close to 150 mph.

“It’s the one you want to win,” Stenhouse said. “I’ve finished second at Bristol a handful of times — so one of these two teams is going to win there at Bristol before I do. That’s kind of a bummer. But I can’t wait to tune in and watch these guys. Hopefully if they get one over the walls, see where that ball ends up landing. But just a really cool venue and something that I’ll be looking forward to watching.”

Waltrip knows firsthand how intense the racetrack can be. He had an infamous crash there in 1990. He laughs about it now — and even encouraged baseball fans to Google it and watch the video before the Speedway Classic.

“I think I hit the wall about dead center field, 400 feet, and about left that place,” Waltrip joked. “It’s amazing to everybody that watches that video — that was a Saturday afternoon Busch [Series] race; the next day, I competed on Sunday.”

Stenhouse, who grew up playing baseball as a left-handed pitcher and first baseman, said Bristol is both his favorite track to race at and his favorite track to watch a race at — especially the famous Bristol Night Races.

This year’s Bristol Night Race will come about a month after the Speedway Classic, on Sept. 13.

“We run Bristol, when we’re qualifying, we’re in the 14 seconds or low 15 seconds for a half-mile racetrack,” Stenhouse said — aka, about the same time it takes De La Cruz to circle the bases for an inside-the-park home run. “So the speeds are up there. The first time I ever went there, I forgot to breathe for about 10 laps. You’re just trying to figure out where you’re at.”

The atmosphere at Bristol for a NASCAR race is unparalleled and it should be the same when baseball comes to the speedway.

“Bristol is a unique venue for NASCAR,” Waltrip said. “It’s one of the tracks you circle as a place where you want to be successful at and win at, because it’s so electric. There’s so many people there. The track is tough. It has everything you want.”

When it becomes a Major League ballpark, Bristol Motor Speedway will look like a traditional baseball field. For the Speedway Classic, it will be 330 feet down the lines, 400 feet to straightaway center field and 375 feet to the left-center- and right-center-field gaps.

“Gaps 375 is really good,” said Jones, who won 10 Gold Glove Awards in center field with Atlanta. “When you get those gaps to 380, it’s a big field.”

But Stenhouse hopes the Reds and Braves players will take a moment to appreciate the venue in all its glory as a racetrack.

“I’d encourage the players to watch a couple of Bristol Night Races before they get there,” Stenhouse said. “When they get in the [racetrack] infield to play baseball, I hope they go to the center and each corner and walk up the banking.”

Jones, Swisher and Casey don’t have much experience driving racecars, but Swisher joked that he would “weasel my way into the pace car” for a race. And Jones said that if he could pick one Braves player from his day who’d be most likely to be a NASCAR driver, it would be … himself.

“I drive fast,” Jones said. “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that, but I drive fast.”

Swisher volunteered his old A’s teammate, pitcher Rich Harden.

“Threw 100 miles an hour and drove 100 miles an hour,” Swisher joked. “That was definitely his M.O. Speed was his thing.”