Someone has been paying people to stand outside Geodis Park in Nashville, stop strangers on their way into soccer games, and tell them that the Fairgrounds Speedway is getting demolished. It’s a done deal, they say. They’re asking for signatures if one seeks affordable housing instead. But none of that is actually true, and hidden cameras caught that.
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NewsChannel 5 obtained secret recordings of petition canvassers in green “Sign our Petition” shirts making what the station described as false claims to collect signatures. In one recording, a canvasser told a man flat out that the demolition was confirmed. When the man asked if that was certain, the canvasser said, “Yes. That’s confirmed. Either way, it’s getting demolished.”
As it turns out, there are no demolition plans. NASCAR cannot demolish city-owned property. The sport has actually said publicly it wants to come back to the track if Nashville moves forward with renovations. The petition these canvassers are collecting signatures for would place a charter amendment on next year’s ballot, replacing auto racing as a protected use of the fairgrounds with affordable housing. It does not guarantee a single unit of housing gets built. It just ends racing.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s office, however, has stated that the charter amendment is not a priority. His office has “been keeping our doors open for the best possible ideas that are most protective of taxpayers.” The group, meanwhile, pushes on.
To get there, they need 55,000 signatures delivered to the Metro Clerk’s office by September 18. Joe Williams has been connected to the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway since he was 18, when he started as a backup announcer. He proposed to his wife on the roof, and has been struck by lightning at the Fairgrounds three times. When NewsChannel 5 showed him the recordings of these fake petitions, he started laughing.
“NASCAR’s never lost a dime at this place. Never,” Williams said. “To say the track is scheduled to be demolished anyway is wrong. A signature on this petition gathered under false pretenses destroys the future of this facility.”
Williams helped pass the 2011 referendum that amended Nashville’s city charter to protect racing at the fairgrounds. It passed with 71% of the vote. He has now joined a counter-effort called “Decline to Sign,” built specifically to correct the record before more people sign something they do not understand.
The Fairgrounds has not hosted a Cup Series race since 1984, with NASCAR returning to Nashville in 2021 at the Superspeedway, located about 30 miles from downtown. Many voices in the sport, including Denny Hamlin and Dale Earnhardt Jr., have worked hard to bring the Cup Series back to this 122-year-old iconic track. But unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’ll change anytime soon.
The campaign to block NASCAR’s return may not be the main reason the Cup Series remains absent from the Fairgrounds. That decision appears to be driven more by financial considerations and the continued success of the Nashville Superspeedway. Even so, the campaign itself raises an important question: Who is organizing it, and who is paying for it? The answer points to a familiar name in Nashville’s long-running battle over the future of the Fairgrounds Speedway.
Who Is Actually Behind This NASCAR Fiasco
In the NewsChannel5 video, when reporters pressed the canvassers for answers, most walked away. However, there was one who did not. On a recording, one canvasser identified the organization paying them.
“We’re hired by CARE for Nashville, which is Citizens Against Racing Expansion,” he said.
That is the same neighborhood group that has been fighting track renovations and blocking NASCAR’s return for years. The canvassers were working outside Geodis Park, home to Nashville SC, which plays in Major League Soccer. The soccer club’s owner, John Ingram, has previously made it clear that he is not enthusiastic about a major racing venue sitting next door to his 30,000-seat stadium. This is also not the first attempt.
An earlier petition led by Mike Kopp and former Nashville law director Saul Solomon was thrown out by a Davidson County Chancery Court judge earlier in 2026 for being too vague about what it actually did. The group refiled with new language and kept going. NewsChannel 5 even sent written questions to Kopp and Solomon through their PR firm, but they didn’t get any response.
Williams put it simply. In 2011, the people who protected racing at the Fairgrounds were volunteers who did it for free because they cared about the place. The people collecting signatures now are hired, and those being hired cannot answer basic questions about what they are asking people to sign. “My question is: who’s paying them and why are they spending so much money to close the sale?” Williams said.
The future of the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway remains unclear, with financial realities, local politics, and competing interests all shaping what comes next. For now, both sides continue to make their case.