Top 30 Memories from 26 Years of Race Weekends at Atlanta Motor Speedway
From last year...
#23: At a Home Depot near you, Bill Elliott bathroom stall doors!
Back in the 80s when we first started going to races at what was then called Atlanta International Raceway, the amenities were not as nice as we enjoy today. One of the biggest and most important improvements we have seen at the track in 25 years is the bathrooms. Before Bruton Smith bought the track in 1990 and eventually built a large bathroom with attached showers just a short walk down from our spots in turn 3, the only bathroom we had on the east end of the track was a small building with 4 or 5 stalls and an interior wall that you peed on (how’s that for a visual on a Friday afternoon?). Fortunately, there was a concrete step in front of the wall, forming a trough for everything to drain, but you literally just peed on the wall. It gets worse…
The stalls… well I don’t want to make this story any more disgusting than it already has been so I’ll jump to the funny part of the story. Now this was a really long time ago… I was 6 or 7 years old probably, so I don’t really remember the details of when or why this happened, but for at least one of the race weekends we were there (I actually remember it being several times), there were no doors on the bathroom stalls. None. When you walked in the door, to your left was some guy sitting on a toilet. Given the crowd at the track, trust me when I say this was even worse than it sounds. My dad tells me the reason there were no doors was because people were taking them off the stalls to burn for firewood (wouldn’t be surprised back then). In any case, needless to say I never wanted to go to the bathroom when we were at the races (especially #2!).
Well at the next race, someone in the infield came prepared. Somebody threw a piece of plywood in the back of their truck, brought a screwdriver and some hinges, and made their own stall door. And, in the true spirit of NASCAR fans, who are the best fans in all of sports, he painted a big old number 9 on it to make sure everyone knew he was a Bill Elliott fan.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I couldn’t tell you that now (and for the last 20 years) you don’t have to worry about this problem anymore. The facilities are more than adequate and usually kept pretty clean despite what tens of thousands of NASCAR fans put them through in a weekend, and all the stalls do have doors. The bathrooms are nice enough now that I almost slept in the one in turn 3 on a very cold and rainy night because it had heat… but that’s another story you’ll see down the road.
Back in the 80s when we first started going to races at what was then called Atlanta International Raceway, the amenities were not as nice as we enjoy today. One of the biggest and most important improvements we have seen at the track in 25 years is the bathrooms. Before Bruton Smith bought the track in 1990 and eventually built a large bathroom with attached showers just a short walk down from our spots in turn 3, the only bathroom we had on the east end of the track was a small building with 4 or 5 stalls and an interior wall that you peed on (how’s that for a visual on a Friday afternoon?). Fortunately, there was a concrete step in front of the wall, forming a trough for everything to drain, but you literally just peed on the wall. It gets worse…
The stalls… well I don’t want to make this story any more disgusting than it already has been so I’ll jump to the funny part of the story. Now this was a really long time ago… I was 6 or 7 years old probably, so I don’t really remember the details of when or why this happened, but for at least one of the race weekends we were there (I actually remember it being several times), there were no doors on the bathroom stalls. None. When you walked in the door, to your left was some guy sitting on a toilet. Given the crowd at the track, trust me when I say this was even worse than it sounds. My dad tells me the reason there were no doors was because people were taking them off the stalls to burn for firewood (wouldn’t be surprised back then). In any case, needless to say I never wanted to go to the bathroom when we were at the races (especially #2!).
Well at the next race, someone in the infield came prepared. Somebody threw a piece of plywood in the back of their truck, brought a screwdriver and some hinges, and made their own stall door. And, in the true spirit of NASCAR fans, who are the best fans in all of sports, he painted a big old number 9 on it to make sure everyone knew he was a Bill Elliott fan.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I couldn’t tell you that now (and for the last 20 years) you don’t have to worry about this problem anymore. The facilities are more than adequate and usually kept pretty clean despite what tens of thousands of NASCAR fans put them through in a weekend, and all the stalls do have doors. The bathrooms are nice enough now that I almost slept in the one in turn 3 on a very cold and rainy night because it had heat… but that’s another story you’ll see down the road.
Maybe it was this guy who we can thank for the stall doors!
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