The busiest time of the year for Knoxville will start today with the 360 Nationals, and the racetrack has new dirt from last season.

The 360 Nationals is the start of the influx of tens of thousands of people into the community between now and August 10th. The 360 Nationals will take place through Saturday, followed by the Capitani Classic on Sunday, and the 410 Knoxville Nationals will start on Wednesday, continuing through Saturday.

This is eight days of racing over a ten-day span which also makes for the busiest time of year for Chris Dunkin and his crew who manage the dirt on the track. Before the 2024 race season, Chris’s team put new dirt on the track that they got from a different location than they normally do. Dunkin says that his team works hard all season, but they put in countless hours to make sure the track is in the best possible shape it can be for the Knoxville Nationals. 

“I think about the Knoxville Nationals all year long. The big difference there is normally we go from Saturday to Saturday to Saturday. During the Nationals we race eight out of ten days so it is different because every night you race on the racetrack. After the first night you can’t get any more moisture in the ground because it’s slicked off, it’s sealed off so basically all we’re doing is working the top, and it seems like it takes a lot less water everyday as we move on so there are some differences there. We try to judge what mother nature is throwing at us and hopefully the outcome is the same every night.”

Hear more from Chris Dunkin about the process of putting in new dirt at the race track this year and the preparation work for the Knoxville Nationals on today’s Let’s Talk Knoxville.