Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS) has always been one of the best gauges for automotive industry popularity. The track’s last race this August filled 150,000 of 160,000 available seats. But Bristol is not about resting on the latest attendance reports.
The Speedway just announced its latest spectator perk: Colossus.
Taking a cue from indoor stadiums, Colossus is the world's largest outdoor, permanent, center-hanging digital display. It features four Panasonic TV screens, each measuring about 30 feet tall by 63 feet wide and 23 times brighter and 25 percent sharper than a typical home HD TV. Each screen boasts nearly 54 million LEDs and 18 million pixels. Each screen will be at least 20 feet closer to guests and five times larger than Bristol’s current screens.
"Colossus will transform the way we see, hear and experience events at Bristol, and provide additional opportunities for events here,” said Jerry Caldwell, BMS executive vice president and general manager.
An additional circular LED display beneath the screens, measuring nearly six feet in height, will convey messages. The total active viewing area, including the HD screens and LED ring, spans more than 8,500 square feet.
Along with the big pictures, the state-of-the-art 540,000-watt audio system includes 380 three-way loudspeakers and 48 stadium subwoofers. The speakers will reach every seat with quality sound, with less than three decibels variance among any seat in the grandstands.
Weighing nearly 700 tons, Colossus will rise via four massive support towers ranging in height from 190-220 feet and weighing in at approximately 437 tons. These will be positioned outside the bowl, and the display will then be suspended over the infield by miles of cabling, the largest of which exceeds the diameter of the vertical cables supporting the Golden Gate Bridge. The cabling alone will weigh in at 117 tons.
Rentenbach Constructors of Knoxville, Tennessee, a Christman Company, is building the structure.
Douglas Moss, senior vice president of marketing and sales for Panasonic Enterprise Solutions Co., says his company worked closely with the racetrack to design a truly one-of-a-kind, appropriately-named feature.
"Panasonic is honored to be chosen by Bristol Motor Speedway as their technology partner for a project that so dramatically transforms the fan experience," says Moss. "We worked closely with Bristol to recommend a unique, high-end technology solution that we believe is a true game-changer. Colossus lives up to its name in every respect, creating a completely immersive fan experience with its sheer size, unparalleled resolution and imaging crispness.”
Construction for the Colossus display begins in November and will be up and running for 2016 events.
Bristol is second only to Daytona International Speedway in seating by only 1,000 seats. The venue claims 55 complete sellouts from 1992-2008, even though it’s in one of the smallest markets in NASCAR.