As one of the most storied race tracks in the country, boasting the most popular races on the NASCAR Sprint Cup tour, Bristol Motor Speedway has been named in many polls as the favorite among both fans and drivers.

The latest honor to be bestowed upon The World’s Fastest Half-Mile comes from the June edition of Stock Car Racing Magazine. In an article entitled “10 Top Tracks To Watch And Race On,” writer John Gibson, who also spends time behind the wheel racing on various tracks, names BMS as one of the tracks every racer needs to compete on during his or her career. Simply put, Gibson considers BMS a real racer’s race track, as well as a track that true fans must venture to if they want to see racing at its highest level.

Gibson assembled his top 10 tracks and qualified the list by saying “Understand that I chose to leave out all but one current NASCAR Cup track. Because let’s face it, any one of us, given the opportunity, would race at any Cup track on the schedule. So with all due respect, the choice to leave out tracks such as Daytona and Talladega was intentional. Rather, I wanted to focus on short tracks.”

As he stated, nine of the 10 tracks are simply short tracks with plenty of grassroots racing on their respective calendars. Some of them are dirt, some asphalt and of course, with the inclusion of BMS, concrete. And while the .533-mile oval does indeed host the most popular Sprint Cup events and two of the most successful Nationwide Series races, along with a major Craftsman Series event, it’s also seen a variety of other series compete on its high banks.

Racers from a number of venues have tested their skills at Bristol. Over the years the track has hosted ARCA, Dash, All-Pro, UARA, Street Stock and Hooters Pro Cup events, not to mention in 2000 and 2001 when the half-mile concrete oval became a dirt track for the World of Outlaw events. Most recently, late model racing has returned to the track with four late model events taking place over each of the last two summers.

Of BMS, Gibson opines “…I won’t go into much explanation on why Bristol is on the list. It is simply King of the Short Tracks. The venue is just incredible. I chose to put it on the list not only because of how amazing and daunting the track can be, but because of the amount of races held there.”

Other tracks named in the article are Tony Stewart’s Eldora Speedway (Rossburg, Ohio), Devil’s Bowl Speedway (Mesquite, Texas), Knoxville Raceway (Knoxville, Iowa), Iowa Speedway (Newton, Iowa), Winchester Speedway (Winchester, Ind.), Belleville High Banks (Belleville, Kan.), Concord Motorsport Park (Concord, N.C.), New York State Fairgrounds (Syracuse, N.Y.) and Rockingham Raceway Park (Rockingham, N.C.).

Gibson sums it all up by writing  “So there you have it, the 10 tracks that you have to race at during your career. Or if you’re a race enthusiast, you’ve got to watch a race at each one at some point during your career.”