TRAFFIC TIPS
AUGUST 2009 RACE WEEK AT BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY All tips and directions courtesy of
David N. Metzger, Traffic Engineer, City of Bristol Tennessee General Traffic Tips
DIRECTIONS! Many commercial mapping software packages, when queried about the best route from Interstate 81 to BMS, will direct the motorist to use Tennessee Exit 69 (State Route 394) in Blountville west of BMS. In March, this may have contributed to the heavy overload and congestion along this roadway, both pre-race and post-race (the four post-race crashes on Interstate 81 downstream of Exit 69 didn't help, either). In March, the Exit 69 route was still full of vehicles an hour after all the other post-race routes were clear. For many fans, based on where they are parking/camping and where they are coming from, some of the other routes actually work better than Exit 69.
HINT!: Explore other routes.
TO PARK OR NOT TO PARK: That is the question. One of the basic principles of race traffic is to "park smart." Think about where you are going after the race, and select a parking spot accordingly (obviously not in a no-parking zone). Select a location that points you in the right direction without making left turns or U-turns. In many locations, left turns and U-turns are prohibited before or after the race, forcing motorists to make long detours or pass through race traffic control points more than once.
If in doubt, ask! Consult the campground/parking field that holds your reservation, talk with others than have been through race traffic, look at the BMS website, or e-mail me at dmetzger@bristoltn.org to discuss race traffic routes. A little planning goes a long way.
ALTERNATE ROUTES: Motorists passing through Virginia (which traffic counts indicate consists of about 45 percent of you), Virginia Exits 3 and 17 on I-81 for both pre-race and post-race traffic, or Virginia Exit 5 for post-race flow, can provide better access.
* From the South, Interstate 81 Tennessee Exit 57A leads to US 11E passing through Johnson City to BMS. Motorists to/from North Carolina over Sam's Gap on Interstate 26 also approach BMS from the south. Tennessee Exit 74 is also available as a post-race route only for a few campgrounds/parking fields north of BMS, but is not configured for pre-race traffic.
CALL: If traffic is stopped, and you suspect it is more than heavy volume causing it; Tennessee, Virginia, and the surrounding states offer 511 service from your mobile phone. Call 511 to learn about traffic conditions ahead; depending on the circumstances, an alternative route may be in order. Many commercial radio stations also provide traffic reports in the Bristol area.
TURN SIGNALS: If you are coming a few days before the race to enjoy the amenities of BMS and the surrounding communities, take the time to drive the drain route leading back to the interstate while you have the time. ** Allow plenty of time for your travel. Typical race weekends have 650,000 vehicles over a period of several days in the BMS vicinity, and many of those vehicles will be on the road at the same time as you.
** Several of the routes utilize "contraflow" lanes after the race, in which a typically northbound lane is used for southbound traffic, for instance. In contraflow areas, do not drive through the medians, as you may meet head-on traffic that you didn't expect, with unfortunate results. ** Plan ahead; please follow the instructions of the signs, police officers, and traffic directors; don't drink and drive; please be courteous to your fellow motorists. From I-81, North of Wytheville, Virginia For folks coming from your direction, I generally recommend parking at Whitetop Creek Park. This is a city park used for free day-parking only (no camping) during Race Weekends. It is actually located on Sportsway Dr on the south side of Hwy 394, just a few thousand feet from where you stayed before at Finish Line Parking. I am attaching a campground map and two diagrams from our race traffic master plan (D2 for pre-race traffic and D12 for post-race traffic) for reference. By parking on the south side of Hwy 394 instead of the north side, this allows a right turn instead of a left to head east on Hwy 394 post-race. A typical August Race Weekend at BMS sees about 650,000 vehicles in the area over several days, and we anticipate that number being higher this time around because of less camping and more day-parking. From Wytheville to Whitetop Creek Park... From Wytheville, go south on Interstate 81 and exit at Virginia Exit 17 onto State Route 75 and turn left at the bottom of the ramp. This will put you onto southbound SR 75 heading towards South Holston Dam, according to the signs. There are also temporary signs along this route that tell you how to get to BMS. Virginia SR 75 turns into Tennessee SR 44 at the state line. Stay on SR 44 past Observation Knob Park, and you will come to a STOP sign at US 421 again. Turn right onto northbound US 421; at this point, you are west of the two mountains to avoid. From here, continue westbound on US 421 (which will turn into a four-lane roadway in a couple of miles), go past a second intersection with SR 44, and go up a big hill right after that. At the top of the hill is a sign advising you to get in the left lane to go to BMS; do so. You will come up onto a traffic signal for Hwy 394, turn left. You are now just a few miles from BMS. Stay in the left lane on Hwy 394. You will go past an interchange with SR 358 and you will go past an interchange with Vance Tank Rd. The next intersection past Vance Tank Rd is the Copperhead Entrance of BMS, and Sportsway Dr is on your left. Go past the campgrounds on both sides of Sportsway Dr and enter Whitetop Creek Park at the south end of the road, about 2000 ft from Hwy 394. Walk back to Hwy 394, cross the road, and catch a shuttle at the Copperhead Entrance to the BMS stadium. As the map shows, there is a White Top Rd and a Whitetop Creek Park in the area. They do not intersect, so be careful of that. From Whitetop Creek Park back to Wytheville ... First of all, we employ a technique called the "pedestrian hold." The pedestrian hold is a period of up to one hour long in which no vehicles on the BMS campus, or on Hwy 394 or Hwy 11E, can move; they are completely stopped to allow the huge volumes of pedestrians to cross these thoroughfares with greater safety. The pedestrian hold period probably accounted for some of the delays you experienced the last time. Take a shuttle bus back to the Copperhead Entrance and walk back to Whitetop Creek Park. Once the pedestrian hold is lifted, exit from Sportsway Dr and turn right (the only way you will be permitted to turn) onto eastbound Hwy 394. Get in the right lane. Go past the Vance Tank Rd interchange and the Weaver Pike interchange. At the US 421 traffic signal, turn right (either turning left or right at the traffic signal will get you to I-81, but you are better off going right to miss all the congestion in the Virginia Exit 7 area) onto southbound US 421. Follow the TO 81 signs to the second SR 44 intersection; turn left as the signs direct you. This will take you to Abingdon and intersect I-81 at the Virginia Exit 17. Get onto northbound I-81 and proceed to Wytheville. If you arrive a few days early and your schedule allows you the opportunity, I would advise spending a few hours on a day before the races to drive from Wytheville to BMS and back in the daylight, so it won't seem so unfamiliar to you when you are driving to BMS (under time pressure to get there before the race) or back to Wytheville (in the middle of the night). From the direction of Knoxville, Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee For folks in your situation, I have been recommending parking at Speedway Parking, at the intersection of Hwy 394 and White Top Rd. Parking at Speedway Parking is free. Getting there pre-race is relatively straightforward. Going back to Pigeon Forge afterward is a little circuitous. It is longer it miles, but shorter in time, and is routed this way because of certain turn restrictions post-race and to miss at a lot of the congestion. I am sending you a campground map as well as two drawings from our race traffic master plan (D2 is pre-race traffic routes and D12 is post-race traffic routes) that show what is described below. From Pigeon Forge, I would leave for Bristol no later than about 9 or 10 am. The main reason to arrive so early is to get a parking space closer to the area where the shuttle buses will pick you up and drop you off again. There are lots of things to see and do until the race starts, so you won't be wandering around aimlessly waiting for the race to start. From Pigeon Forge to Speedway Parking ... Go north on I-81 and get off at Tennessee Exit 69 (Hwy 394). Go west on Hwy 394 through the town of Blountville and past the interchange with Hwy 11E (that interchange is shown on the campground map; you are approaching BMS from the left side of the map on Hwy 394). Go past the traffic signal at Hwy 390 and get in the right lane as soon as you pass that traffic signal (if you are not in the right lane already). The next intersection is a four-legged intersection with White Top Rd; turn right. Speedway Parking is at the corner, but the driveway is on White Top Rd south of Hwy 394. White Top Rd will go around a curve to the left, and the driveway to Speedway Parking is on the left past that curve. Speedway Parking in built into a hillside as a series of terraces; the shuttle buses load and unload on the shoulder of Hwy 394 at the top of the parking lot, so go up to Hwy 394 and walk through the pedestrian gates in the fence to get to the shuttles. Please be aware that there is a White Top Rd and a Whitetop Creek Park in this area and they do not connect, despite the similar names. From Speedway Parking back to Pigeon Forge .... First of all, there is a pedestrian hold period for up to one hour after the race ends. During the pedestrian hold, no vehicles can exit the BMS campus and no vehicles can travel on Hwy 11E or Hwy 394 adjacent to the campus, so that the huge flows of pedestrians can cross these major thoroughfares with more safety. You will consume part of that time period getting back to Speedway Parking. The route back to Pigeon Forge is different than the route from Pigeon Forge. It is a few miles longer, but a lot less congested, so that you will probably save time by going this way. If you go back the way you came, you will be delayed; taking Hwy 394 westward back to Blountville and Exit 69 post-race carries between one-fourth and one-third of the traffic load for the entire area, and is usually the last route to clear. This route will circle you around some of the congestion. Once back at your vehicle, go back on White Top Rd back to Hwy 394 and turn right (you came from the left when you got here; you will be going a different way back). This will put you onto eastbound Hwy 394; on the campground map, you will go off the map to the right. Go past the Vance Tank Rd interchange and go past the Weaver Pike (State Route 358) interchange. Once you are past State Route 358, get in the left lane. You will come up on a traffic signal at US 421. Going left or right will get you back to Interstate 81; you want to go left. From there, follow the TO 81 signs that will take you along the following route through Bristol, Tenn and Bristol, Va ... Go north on Hwy 421 (which turns into Virginia Ave) Turn left onto westbound Maple St (which is still US 421) Turn right onto northbound Pennsylvania Ave (which is still US 421) You will come up on a curve to the left at a traffic signal for Anderson St (straight ahead) that leads onto a concrete four-lane bridge (still US 421). Go onto the four-lane bridge (Anderson St) and get in the right lane right away once you are on the bridge. At the end of the bridge, turn right onto northbound Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd (still US 421) and get into the left lane. In two blocks, you will cross State St into Bristol, Va. One block later, you will see that US 421 makes a left turn onto Cumberland St and that you must go straight ahead to get to I-81. At this point, leave US 421 and continue straight on northbound Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd (as the TO 81 ↑ sign indicates). Get in the right lane. You will be directed to turn right at a five-legged intersection with a traffic signal to get to I-81; this will put you onto Moore St, which turns into Lee Hwy in a block. Stay on northbound Lee Hwy, which becomes US 11/19, and the roadway will turn into a five-lane roadway in a little over a mile. About a mile past the point where the road becomes a five-lane highway, you will encounter Interstate 81 at Virginia Exit 5. Get in the left lane, go under the bridge, and enter southbound Interstate 81. At this point, you are about 75 miles from the Pigeon Forge exit. As you go south on I-81 and re-enter Tennessee, get in the left lane. The right lane is closed at Tennessee Exit 69 to allow the huge volume of race traffic from that roadway to have their own lane on the Interstate. Once past Exit 69, you can travel in either lane. You will also encounter some lane shifts where I-81 meets I-40, as TDOT changes the lane configurations here post-race to favor traffic coming from Bristol instead of the usual traffic coming from Asheville. Another alternative to Speedway Parking is Whitetop Creek Park, which is located on Sportsway Dr, accessed via the Copperhead Entrance, east of Speedway Parking and BMS on the campground map attached. Parking here is also free, and you will exit probably faster than you would from Speedway Parking, taking the same post-race route as described above, but it is about a 2,000-ft walk from Speedway Parking to Copperhead Entrance where the shuttle buses load and unload. To get to Whitetop Creek Park pre-race, continue east on Hwy 394 past White Top Rd, and the Dragway Entrance; Sportsway Dr is the next road on your right at the Copperhead Entrance, and Whitetop Creek Park is at the south end of Sportsway Dr. So, you get a quicker exit, but you have to walk further to do it. From the direction of Boone, North Carolina On a Rand McNally map, the road from Boone to Bristol ( US 421) looks pretty straightforward as a route to get to Bristol . However, I am going on the assumption that you are not familiar with the area. US 421 between Boone and Bristol crosses two fairly good-sized mountains---Holston Mtn and Iron Mtn---and it is better from a time and ease-of-travel standpoint to go around them instead of over them, especially at night. These are very winding roads over these two mountains; so winding that vehicles over 35 feet long are prohibited, as they cannot negotiate the tightest turns. US 321 will go around these two mountains to the south, but there is a shorter route than that as well, that will take you from NC to Tennessee into Virginia and then back into Tennessee by going around these two mountains to the north. I go to Boone a lot myself and this is the route I take; it takes just under two hours from Bristol to Boone under normal traffic conditions. From Boone , NC to BMS ... From Boone, go north on US 421 to Mountain City , the county seat of Johnson County , Tennessee (the cornermost county in Tennessee ). The road from Boone to Mtn City is a two-lane has a few grades with truck-climbing lanes, but no big deal. In Mountain City , which is on the east side of the two mountains to avoid, you will intersect with Tennessee SR ( State Route ) 91. In one direction, SR 91 will take you to Elizabethton; in the other, it will take you to Damascus , Virginia . Head up SR 91 to Damascus . This is another two-lane road, but it follows a creek, so it is fairly level. When you get to Damascus , just a couple of miles into Virginia , you will intersect with US 58. Take US 58 westbound through the town of Damascus (you will intersect SR 91 again in Damascus to go towards Glade Spring and Lodi; ignore that route and stay on US 58) and head towards Abingdon, Virginia. US 58 stays a two-lane roadway until you get just outside of Abingdon, where it will turn into a four-lane roadway. About two miles or so past the point where US 58 becomes a four-lane roadway, you will intersect Interstate 81 at Virginia Exit 19. Get on Interstate 81 southbound, but stay in the right lane. Get off again at the next exit (Virginia Exit 17) and turn left at the bottom of the ramp. This will put you onto southbound SR 75 heading towards South Holston Dam, according to the signs. There are also temporary signs along this route that tell you how to get to BMS. Virginia SR 75 turns into Tennessee SR 44 at the state line. Stay on SR 44 past Observation Knob Park , and you will come to a STOP sign at US 421 again. Turn right onto northbound US 421; at this point, you are west of the two mountains to avoid. From here, continue westbound on US 421 (which will turn into a four-lane roadway in a couple of miles), go past a second intersection with SR 44, and go up a big hill right after that. At the top of the hill is a sign advising you to get in the left lane to go to BMS; do so. You will come up onto a traffic signal for Hwy 394, turn left. You are now just a few miles from BMS. Stay in the right lane on Hwy 394. You will go past an interchange with SR 358; you will go past an interchange with Vance Tank Rd ; and you will come up on an intersection with a sign in the median reading Copperhead Entrance. The roadway on your left is Sportsway Dr, go left to go south. Go to the end of the roadway (about 2000 feet); this is Whitetop Creek Park, which is a free day-parking only (no camping) area for race fans. This appears on the campground map to the east of the BMS stadium. Walk back to Hwy 394, cross Hwy 394, and catch a shuttle to the stadium of BMS. From BMS back to Boone ... First of all, we employ a technique called the "pedestrian hold." The pedestrian hold is a period of up to one hour long in which no vehicles on the BMS campus, or on Hwy 394 or Hwy 11E, can move; they are completely stopped to allow the huge volumes of pedestrians to cross these thoroughfares with greater safety. You will consume part of the pedestrian hold period getting back to your vehicle. Once the pedestrian hold is lifted, exit from Sportsway Dr and turn right onto eastbound Hwy 394. Get in the right lane. Go past the Copperhead Entrance, the Vance Tank Rd interchange, and the Weaver Pike interchange. At the US 421 traffic signal, turn right (either turning left or right at the traffic signal will get you to I-81, but you are better off going right to miss all the congestion in the Virginia Exit 7 area) onto southbound US 421. Follow the TO 81 signs to the second SR 44 intersection; turn left as the signs direct you. This will take you to Abingdon and intersect I-81 at the Virginia Exit 17. Get onto northbound I-81 and stay in the right lane; get off again at Exit 19 ( US 58) and follow US 58 eastbound through Damascus . US 58 and SR 91 intersect twice in Damascus ; the first one takes you to Glade Spring and Lodi (don't go there) and the second one on the far side of town takes you to Mountain City (take that one). In Mountain City , get back on US 421 southbound and that will take you to Boone. If you have any questions, please let me know. I am enclosing a campground map, pre-race route map (Diagram D2 from our race plan), and a post-race route map (Diagram D12 from our race plan) that will help illustrate these routes. From the direction of Asheville, North Carolina For your situation, one of your parking options is one of the parking/camping fields on the west side of Hwy 11E (see attached maps) between Exide Dr and White Top Rd. Hwy 11E, as the main route from Bristol to North Carolina via Johnson City, is one of the heavier-volume routes for both pre-race and post-race flows. I do not usually recommend one privately operated parking field over another; the directions below would apply to any of those on the west side of Hwy 11E (but not for those on Old Thomas Bridge Rd or Maplehurst; for your purposes, parking in a location that directly accesses Hwy 11E would be better). Since these locations are so close to BMS, they fill up very quickly, so it would be advisable to arrive on race day as early as possible in the morning to secure a parking space. Some of these parking fields have websites that can be linked through BMS' website for reservations. These directions would also work for Peaceful Valley (Gateway Baptist Church), south of Hwy 394 on the west side of Hwy 11E; it is my understanding that they operate a shuttle bus for their patrons to BMS and back. From Asheville to BMS ... Go over Sam's Gap in I-26 to Johnson City, and get off at Exit 19 (State Route 381); turn right at the bottom of the ramp. As soon as you get onto State Route 381, get in the left lane. In a mile or so, the left lane turns into a ramp to get onto northbound US 11E. Go north on US 11E (coming up from the bottom of the main campground map) and turn as appropriate to your parking location. US 11E in the BMS area is a divided highway with a median, and as traffic volumes increase during the day, or certain parking fields fill up, those median openings are closed, so that no left turns or U-turns are permitted from then until the rest of the day. From your parking location back to Asheville ... First of all, we employ a technique called "pedestrian hold." During pedestrian hold, which can last from 45 minutes to one hour after the race ends, no traffic is permitted to move at all on Hwy 11E, Hwy 394, or on the BMS campus. If you park in one of the parking fields on the west side of Hwy 11E between Exide Dr and White Top Rd, you will be subject to the pedestrian hold. Stopping these vehicles completely allows the huge flow of pedestrians, such as yourself, to walk back to their vehicles with greater safety. Once the pedestrian hold is lifted, exit your parking area, turn right onto southbound Hwy 11E, and stay going south on Hwy 11E back to Johnson City. Hwy 11E, post-race, usually carries about one-fourth of the traffic load exiting BMS, so there will be congestion all the way to Johnson City. In Johnson City, exit onto State Route 381, which will take you back to I-26 (there is signage to direct you this way, which is the same route in reverse that you took to go through Johnson City in the morning).
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