Nashville Tornado: NASCAR Offers Support to City Following Fatal Storm

On Tuesday morning, a tornado touched down in Nashville and Middle Tennessee which killed 21 [...]

By Brian Jones

On Tuesday morning, a tornado touched down in Nashville and Middle Tennessee which killed 21 people and injured 150 others. The area is now in the process of cleaning and rebuilding and there has been a ton of support via social media. NASCAR went to Twitter to let Nashville know its love for the city, showing a photo of the aftermath of burnouts on Broadway.

Along with the 21 people dead and 150 people injured, the Nashville Fire Department reported 48 buildings collapsed with a dozen structures and residential areas severely damaged. Because of the storms and the damage, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) activated a Level-3 State of Emergency which is defined as a "serious emergency or minor disaster has occurred or a situation is deteriorating rapidly and public warnings are being issued. The Tennessee Emergency Management Plan (TEMP) is activated and a state of emergency is automatically declared."

NASCAR has been a popular attraction in Nashville. In fact, racing legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he would race more if they returned to the city more often.

"I think we belong in Nashville," Earnhardt said. "I think we belong in Nashville racing cars. That's more important than even having the banquet there. It's a great place for us to be racing and we should be racing there."

"If they ever did run a (NASCAR) Xfinity race there and it's in the next four or five years I'd love to put that on my calendar as a race to go run," he continued. "Because that was a lot [of] fun when we used to race there in '98 and '99. I had more fun probably racing the late model there with [Joe] Buford and [Chad[ Chafin and all of those guys back in the day."

The last time NASCAR had a race in Nashville was in December for NASCAR Champions Week where the top drivers from the year were honored. Earnhardt attended Champions week and he talked about the love he has for the city.

"This town feels like a homecoming in a sense, for our sport, there's a lot of history here with NASCAR," said at this year's awards, when talking about the Fairgrounds Speedway and another racing complex outside of Nashville. "But there's also a great, great relationship, a strong relationship with the music industry here in Nashville, that can only get stronger and present a lot of opportunities for artists and our drivers to do a lot of work together and cross-promote throughout the year. It's a fun town to celebrate anything in, so we're enjoying that."

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