Sports fans have seen NASCAR race on a football field, ice hockey bring the rink to both baseball and football fields, and college football has played at a race track – University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech.  There has even been a baseball game in the middle of a corn field!

Now, Major League Baseball is coming to NASCAR next season for a game…in Thunder Valley!

MLB has announced that on August 2, 2025 the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Reds will play the Speedway Classic.  It will also mark the first time a professional baseball game will be played in the state of Tennessee.

President and general manager of Bristol Motor Speedway Jerry Caldwell spoke on the unique game saying, “I see NASCAR and MLB pull together.  I think this is a great platform for that. I think our fan bases fit naturally together, but I think we can do a lot of fun things to expose folks to both sides of that.”

Bristol Motor Speedway is a 0.533 mile oval with 33 degree turns set inside the mountains of Tennessee and Virginia.  The city of Bristol sits directly on the border of Tennessee and Virginia with half of the town in each state.  Bristol is also known as “The Last Great Coliseum”.

Cup Series drivers Ross Chastain and Chase Elliott, former driver and champion Kevin Harvick, Speedway Motorsports president and CEO Marcus Smith, and former MLB stars Chipper Jones and Eric Jones were all on hand for the announcement which included Chipper Jones taking a “hot lap” with Chase Elliott.  Dawsonville, Georgia native Chase Elliott is a long time Braves fans and Braves legend Chipper Jones is a long time NASCAR fan.

Jones speaking on his first visit to Bristol said, “I think if you had a camera on me, my mouth would have been wide open.  I think seeing these stands full — being from the South and knowing what NASCAR means to everybody in the South, seeing all these butts in the seats and how loud it gets and just the bumping for four hours.”

He continued, “like I said, my pucker factor was a 9.5, and it was just me and him (Elliott) out there, you know? I mean, can you imagine 38, 39 other cars in such close proximity? All professional athletes stand in awe of professional athletes in other sports, and like no other, I stand in amazement at what these guys do.”

The next big challenge is planning out the configuration of the baseball diamond itself in an infield that during race weekends is filled with haulers, campers, and fans.  The reconfiguration will include removal of some of the pit walls.

The Melon Man Ross Chastain spoke on baseball coming to Bristol saying, “I think it’s unmeasurable what it could do for both sports.  People coming here may have never even heard of Bristol, but they’re coming for the baseball game. And Bristol season-ticket holders might think, ‘You know what? I went to the football game. I went to the dirt sprint car races and the dirt races here and a bunch of NASCAR races. I want to go see a baseball game here.’ I think you’re gonna have quite a bit of cross-pollination with that.”