How Many People Were Really at the Food City 500?

Twenty-six thousand.

NASCAR doesn’t release attendance figures to save face.

But that’s my estimate of the crowd at the Food City 500 at a venue designed to seat 162,000.

It’s arrived by counting the number of people in a random section at Bristol Motor Speedway, section N of The Allisons, in the third stage of the race.

Literally by starting at the bottom of the section; 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . .

Halfway up and the count was 90. By that time I decided to give the crowd the benefit of the doubt and estimated 250 in the entire section.

After all, some people will be obscured from sight. Others will be buying concessions or will have left early or will be in the restroom

Then I counted the amount of sections open. The Alan Kulwicki and Darrell Waltrip sections were closed.

Nobody allowed in the seats by the banking

By my count there were 52 sections, counting a section as going from the front of a seating area by a track all the way back to the terrace, open to fans.

Taking the rough but reasonable estimate of 250 people in a section, I then doubled it. Because some sections would be more populated than others.