Lights! Camera! Action!

To celebrate Bristol Motor Speedway's 100th Cup Series race, NASCAR.COM is taking a look back at significant moments and drivers that have made events at BMS the most sought-after ticket in NASCAR.

One of the races on the "must visit" wish lists of a majority of NASCAR fans is the night race at Bristol Motor Speedway. In fact, it's so ingrained in the history of the sport that "Irwin Tools Night Race" can stand alone as this year's sponsor.

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Inside the Numbers

Most Cup Series races

Rank	Track	No.
1	Daytona	127 *
2	Martinsville	123
3	Richmond	108
4	Darlington	107
5	Charlotte	103
6	Atlanta	102
7	Bristol	99
8	Michigan	82
	Talladega	82
10	Dover	81
11	Pocono	66
12	Loudon	31
13	Phoenix	28
14	Watkins Glen	27
15	Sonoma	22
16	Fontana	20
17	Texas	19
18	Indianapolis	17
19	Las Vegas	13
20	Homestead	11
21	Chicago	10
22	Kansas	9

* -- Includes 23 Daytona 500 qualifying races that were points events.
Race totals as of Aug. 2, 2010.

But that wasn't always the case. When the track landed a late July date beginning in 1962, the 500-lap distance was more often than not run in sweltering summer heat. Denny Darnell, who was hired by track founder Larry Carrier to handle public relations for the speedway in 1983, remembers what it was like for fans and teams alike.

"It was 500 laps and you'd just burn up sitting in those seats," Darnell said.

Carrier experimented with moving the summer date to November in 1975, but it failed to catch on with fans. The track was sold to Lanny Hester and Gary Baker the following year, and they tried a number of things to generate revenue, including adding different series. And in 1978, they decided to hold the first night race at Bristol.

"Gary and Lanny owned the track in Nashville," Darnell said. "They were into night racing, yes. They also brought in the Baby Grand cars, as they were called, at the time. They brought in the big trucks, but that was perhaps a mistake, because they put so much weight on the track."

Cale Yarborough wound up winning the inaugural night race in front of a crowd announced at 30,000, but the idea was slow to catch on for the first few years. According to Darnell, poor lighting was a major reason.

"Believe it or not, they used the original lights [for the infield]," Darnell said. "When ESPN came in in '83 and were going to televise the race live, they asked how much candlepower we had, and I said, 'Well, we've run night races here before.' And they came in and measured it, and it didn't even show up.

"So basically they were driving in the dark."

But things turned around quickly when the current owners rehired Carrier as general manager at the end of 1982. He immediately did two things: He sold the track's broadcasting rights to a fledgling cable sports operation called ESPN, then hired Iowa's Musco Lighting to bring the facility's lighting up to state-of-the-art standards.

"Musco came in in '83, just before the first race ever televised from Bristol," Darnell said. "People talk about the reasons behind our success at Bristol. I gave Larry Carrier all the credit in the world for the crowds they get.

"And the reason why is because in '83, Carrier offered ESPN the opportunity to televise all four -- the two Cup races and the two Busch races -- live. And there was no other race live at the time except Daytona."

But Carrier said he wanted something in return, coverage of his six IHRA events. ESPN readily agreed and the night race was about to become a permanent fixture on the schedule.

But Darnell said it continued to have its detractors.

"And that was the start of it," Darnell said. "I was there. We got calls from [North Wilkesboro's] Enoch Staley, [Richmond's] Paul Sawyer and Frank Wilson over in Rockingham, and they said, 'You're crazy. There'll be no walkup.' Because back in those days, every track had Thursday qualifying, because you had to get the walkup.

"That was the mentality of the promoters: you had to qualify on Thursday -- and only qualify 10 or whatever -- and then you'd qualify the rest on Friday. But you had to have a pole winner or something for the newspapers to write about."

But Carrier was unfazed. And after that 1983 race was broadcast nationwide on cable, fans suddenly clamored for tickets.

"What it did was give Bristol an edge on everybody else, because the people saw it live," Darnell said. "And the next race, we got calls from Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania: 'We've got to come down there and see that. That was unbelievable.' And that was the night race at Bristol. It wasn't the spring race in the daytime that created the perception that this was a race you had to see. It was the night race."

At the time, selling 30,000 tickets to a short-track event was considered a success, especially if you could sell those tickets in advance.

"Gary had the towers added, so it sat a little less than 30,000," Darnell said. "The first year I was there, I'll be honest, for the spring race in 1983, we sold probably 70 percent of the tickets. When I left there, we were sold out a month-and-a-half, two months before the race, including standing room only.

"The amazing thing was that in those days, if you sold 50 percent of your tickets before race week, you were a genius. You were on your way to a great crowd because you had a tremendous walkup. Some tracks think there's still a walkup out there, but it's not that way, even though there's probably more today than last year because of the economy and everything."

So Carrier's foresight -- and numerous expansions of the facility -- changed the way fans attended races.

"We created a situation where people had to buy their tickets ahead of time," Darnell said.

Darnell, who currently handles public relations for Dodge but was Bristol's general manager for three years beginning in 1985, said thinking "outside of the box" wasn't unusual for Carrier.

"Ironically, when the track was first built, it had a grass infield and they played an NFL exhibition game there between the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles," Darnell said. "The guys came out there and said, 'We're not playing in this cow pasture.' And Larry Carrier said, 'Yes, you are. I've got a contract.' So they played the game.

"That was the only game ever played at Bristol."

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