Throughout the summer, a petition-gathering campaign focused on the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway has grown contentious.
On one side, there’s the Restore Our Fairgrounds coalition and the associated Citizens Against Racetrack Expansion (CARE), the latter of whom has deployed canvassers to grocery store parking lots, polling places and public parks across the city for nearly three months. They’re aiming to gather the roughly 40,000 signatures it’ll take to put the question of whether to remove auto racing as a protected activity at the fairgrounds from the city charter on a future election ballot.
If they succeed, voters will likely decide next year whether to replace “auto racing” with “affordable housing and/or workforce housing” in that section
of the city charter, thus requiring the Nashville Fair Board to implement plans to discontinue racing at the fairgrounds.
On the other side are racetrack supporters and the Decline to Sign campaign, which quickly sprouted in response to the Restore Our Fairgrounds petition drive. They’re looking to maintain a status quo that’s existed since 2011, when protections for racing at the fairgrounds were enshrined in Nashville’s governing document.
The end of the race is nearly here, at least as far as the petition campaign is concerned. Restore Our Fairgrounds has until Sept. 18 to finish gathering signatures.
But all the while, accusations have been flying.
Inside the clash that's extended all summer long
Opponents of the campaign claim that it’s backed by billionaire John Ingram, the owner of the speedway's next-door neighbor, Nashville Soccer Club. Decline to Sign frequently calls Ingram out by name on its social media channels, including in a Sept. 10 post that says he "should be ashamed for sending an army of paid, out-of-state canvassers to not only lie to voters about affordable housing, but to disrupt local businesses and their customers."
The group also argues that canvassers are misleading voters about the track’s looming demolition in a bid to gather more signatures. And text blasts from Decline to Sign lambaste canvassers for telling voters that Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH) backs the petition campaign, while the advocacy group in a public statement said its membership did not take a formal vote on the campaign and asked Restore Our Fairgrounds to remove its name as a supporting organization.
“I’ve always considered Nashville a pretty honest city,” said Joe Williams, spokesperson for Decline to Sign and the voice of the fairgrounds speedway, “and this is one campaign that’s been anything but.”
Supporters, meanwhile, say their goal is simply to let Nashville voters decide the speedway’s fate at the ballot box next year. They also say campaign workers are coming under fire.
In police reports obtained by The Tennessean, some canvassers said they were assaulted by opponents of the campaign. One said a man stole her clipboard out of her hands and struck her on the head with it as she gathered signatures outside a West Nashville Kroger. Another report said a man grabbed a canvasser’s clipboard and threw it across the grass on primary election day Aug. 6 outside Shelby Park Community Center.
Two police reports reviewed by The Tennessean noted that they were filed simply as a matter of record. And while the report about a canvasser hit on the head with her clipboard indicated that she intended to prosecute, a Metro Nashville Police spokesperson said it didn't lead to charges. All leads in the case were exhausted last month and it is suspended unless any new information comes to light, the spokesperson said.
“It’s fine for everybody to have a voice in a democracy,” said John Spragens, the president of CARE. “People can have a different view on this all day long. But to make people feel unsafe as they go do hard work in the hot summer is really beyond the pale.”
State and local politicians have waded into the conflict, too. District 17 Metro Nashville Council member Terry Vo signed on as a supporter of the Restore Our Fairgrounds coalition back in August 2025. At a news conference last month, the coalition unveiled renderings couched as a “new vision” for the future of the speedway site, flanked by state Reps. John Ray Clemmons and Caleb Hemmer.
Decline to Sign, meanwhile, has trotted out a parade of politicians opposing the petition effort. Metro Nashville Council members including Courtney Johnston, Jordan Huffman, Russ Bradford, Sheri Weiner, Jacob Kupin and Olivia Hill have all issued statements supporting Decline to Sign. So have two more state representatives, Bob Freeman and Aftyn Behn, the latter of whom likened preserving the racetrack to the history of Ryman Auditorium in an early August Substack post.
Then there’s the dueling ethics complaints, filed both by and against District 3 Metro Nashville Public Schools board member Zach Young. In his complaint about the petition effort, Young called on several local leaders including the Davidson County Election Commission and Metro Law Director Tyler Yarbro to open an investigation into petition fraud.
The complaint filed against Young by Restore Our Fairgrounds coalition member Heidi Bagsall Favorite, meanwhile, said Young and other speedway supporters have “created a climate of fear in the field” for canvassers.
Decline to Sign spokesperson: 'If this thing gets to a ballot, I think it gets slammed like a gnat at a picnic'
Twists and turns in the summer-long clash aside, the issue’s not going away any time soon.
If the petition campaign ultimately falls short, it’ll likely reignite the conversation around renovating the speedway and bringing NASCAR races back to the fairgrounds for the first time in more than four decades.
But Spragens and the rest of the pro-petition crowd were feeling bullish about hitting their signature goal about two weeks out from the Sept. 18 deadline.
“We feel good about all the work that has happened this summer to have conversations around the community with Nashvillians, and we feel confident that we’re going to gather the number of signatures that’s required to put this on the ballot next year, to give Nashvillians a choice about the future of the fairgrounds,” Spragens said.
Opponents aren’t so sure.
“Nashville’s a strange town; it sometimes doesn’t pay attention to what’s going on until the very last minute,” Williams said. “If this thing gets to a ballot, I think it gets slammed like a gnat at a picnic.”
Austin Hornbostel is the Metro reporter for The Tennessean. Have a question about local government you want an answer to? Reach him at ahornbostel@tennessean.com.
Get Davidson County news delivered to your inbox every Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Fairgrounds Speedway clash intensifies as signature drive nears end
