Noise from Bristol Motor Speedway? (Knoxville, Johnson City: house, schools, to live in)

[VirtualBigRed]

Can anyone tell me how far away you can hear the car/racing noise from the Bristol Motor Speedway? I am trying to stay away from the noise and traffic congestion associated with the speedway. Someone on this website said they could stand outside their home in Mountain City and hear the noise!!

[rccrain]

Mountain City ... not even close. I'm calling bologna on that one.

I'd guess a 5 mile radius can hear the loudest races. I used to live about 4 miles from the track and could only hear a faint hum. It used to be louder before Bruton put in the grandstands which traps in a lot of the noise.

Plus there are only a couple of races each year. The traffic is more of a bother than the noise.

Twice a year traffic affects everything from Lebanon to Knoxville. Only a couple days are bad.

[BuzzCam]

Originally Posted by VirtualBigRed

Can anyone tell me how far away you can hear the car/racing noise from the Bristol Motor Speedway? I am trying to stay away from the noise and traffic congestion associated with the speedway. Someone on this website said they could stand outside their home in Mountain City and hear the noise!!

I used to live in the southern part of Bluff City in the mid 70's, near the river and could hear the races, but it didn't bother me if I was inside. When I worked on Holston Mountain at Channel 5's Transmitter, I could hear the raceway there as well.

The sound carried much further at night than it did during the day. Not sure why though.

I'd take the raceway any day over the C-130's that take off and land over my house here in Nashville near the airport. Those things are loud and they fly much lower than commercial aircraft.

[jabogitlu]

Yeah, there's no way you could hear it in Mountain City. If you can hear something in Bristol while you're standing in Mountain City you better be preparing to die.

I have no idea how far out you can hear the noise. Needless to say, noise produced at the raceway is inaudible in Johnson City (proper, though evidently you can hear it around Bluff City) and Kingsport.

Like rccrain said, the bigger concern is traffic. Schools shut down in Bristol because of the traffic. But it's only a couple days, twice a year.

[BuzzCam]

Originally Posted by jabogitlu

Yeah, there's no way you could hear it in Mountain City. If you can hear something in Bristol while you're standing in Mountain City you better be preparing to die.

I have no idea how far out you can hear the noise. Needless to say, noise produced at the raceway is inaudible in Johnson City (proper, though evidently you can hear it around Bluff City) and Kingsport.

Like rccrain said, the bigger concern is traffic. Schools shut down in Bristol because of the traffic. But it's only a couple days, twice a year.

I wanted to clarify, when I said I could hear the races in from the Bristol Motor Speedway in Bluff City, I am talking about a low hum, not ear shattering roaring. We have raceway in Nashville that is about 7 miles away. They have night races occasionally, and I can hear the noise. But, again it is a low hum and inside the house, I cannot hear it at all. Now on the other hand Interstate 40, which is a mile away, produces much more noise than the local raceway or even Bristol Motor Speedway did when I lived in Bluff City.

[Tennesseestorm]

Originally Posted by rccrain

Mountain City ... not even close. I'm calling bologna on that one.

I agree. I live about 9 miles northeast of Bristol Motor Speedway. If I am inside the house, I cannot hear it, but if I am outside during a race, you can hear the cars, but its a faint roar/rumble. If its a night race, it can be heard a little more, but its not like its bothersome.

I am also close enough to see the lights lighting up the sky from the race track... the southwestern sky looks like twilight, even at midnight!

Then they will normally have fireworks after the race and we can hear that, even inside the house... it sounds like thunder and with the lights flashing, it looks like a storm... thats kinda neat.

Then its after the race we hear more roaring. Northeast bound traffic will come out HWY 394, then hit HWY 421 and hit the back way up to I-81. I am about .5 miles away from HWY 421, so I can hear the cars / trucks / RVs that leave that night heading back home roaring for hours going down the highway at night.

Hope this helps.

[southernfried]

I live near a speedway here,<Byram,Ms>about 6 miles away I can hear the races at nite ,Low hum/roar sameway from the dragstrip. You can hear it more at nite cause the air is denser/cooler at nite making noise travel longer distances.

[BuzzCam]

Originally Posted by southernfried

I live near a speedway here,<Byram,Ms>about 6 miles away I can hear the races at nite ,Low hum/roar sameway from the dragstrip. You can hear it more at nite cause the air is denser/cooler at nite making noise travel longer distances.

Thank you for the explanation. I live in Nashville about 1 mile from Interstate 40 and can't hear the traffic in the daytime, as I can at night. And, I can hear our raceway (at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds closer to town) at night, but not during the day. We have a new raceway, The Nashville Superspeedway, that is over 15 miles away, and have never heard anything sound, day or night, from there.

I am surprise I can't hear the 70,000 screaming fans at LP Field (where the Titans Play), as it is not too far from where I live.

Pink Floyd played at Vanderbilt Stadium (I would have loved to see that concert) and residents in the area could hear the band over eight blocks away. Vanderbilt only hosted one more concert after Pink Floyd, and that was The Rolling Stones, but I hear the sound did not carry as far.

[bound2TN]

Dear Friends:
While we're on the subject--I notice that there is (are) train tracks running North/South smack dab in the middle of Bristol. My brother's place in Virginia is only a few hundred feet from some tracks and the noise is really bad! What is the situation in Bristol---are there a lot of trains, a lot of streets where the engineer "sounds off" and what is the area like in general near the tracks?

Thanks.

[DubbleT]

Well, I'm on the east side of Bristol, a little over a mile from the railroad tracks. I hear the whistle sometimes in the evenings, but it doesn't seem to be very frequent. It's also not loud to me, but I'm down in a valley and have a park with a lot of trees between the tracks and my house, so that might make a difference. So far I don't think I've heard the racetrack at all and I'm about 7 miles from there.