BRISTOL, Tenn. — Nearly 20 years ago, Dale Earnhardt Sr. was terrorizing drivers on the high banks of Bristol Motor Speedway while a young hot shot named Jeff Gordon was putting his own stamp on the sport by mastering one of NASCAR’s toughest tracks.

Two hours up the road, Peyton Manning was slinging touchdowns around Neyland Stadium, leading Phillip Fulmer’s Tennessee Volunteers to double-digit wins each season.

And two crazy ideas were starting to take shape. At Tennessee and Virginia Tech, border schools three hours apart, athletic directors Doug Dickey and Jim Weaver were talking about the two schools playing football for only the third time since 1937. Down the road, Bruton Smith, the owner of NASCAR’s most distinctive racetrack, had an even crazier idea: Why not play the game inside the place known then as “Thunder Valley"?

At the time, it seemed like just another one of Smith’s crazy ideas — like building mammoth speedways in Texas and Las Vegas. But, as NASCAR fans well know, Smith has a knack for turning crazy ideas into reality (like building mammoth speedways in Texas and Las Vegas).

MORE: Who wins? Week 2 college football picks

“This game had been talked about for 20-plus years,” BMS president Jerry Caldwell said. “It was revisited a few times, but the stars never did align.”

Eventually, they did. Marcus Smith, Bruton’s son and the president of Charlotte Motor Speedway, breathed new life into the idea in 2012, and current ADs Dave Hart (Tennessee) and Whit Babcock (Virginia Tech) quickly jumped on board. They agreed to play, marking just the ninth meeting ever between the schools.

Bruton Smith’s dream will become reality Saturday night. Bristol has, at last, turned its showcase NASCAR venue into a football stadium. The Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol between the Vols and Hokies will be played in front of more than 150,000 fans — the largest crowd ever to witness a college football game.

“We are just a few short days from rewriting the history books for college football,” Caldwell said.

“It’s been (in the works for) a long time,” Fulmer said. “We would get to a place and it would stop and you would kind of forget about it. But I’m so glad it finally came to fruition.

“It’s great for both programs, for both states. It’s great for college football in general.”

MORE: Vols, Hokies have some of hottest rivals in college football

The game will make history, but what is most remarkable is how Bristol managed to pull it off.

Since the game was announced in 2013, Caldwell has faced two frequent questions: How are you going to transform a racetrack into the largest football stadium in the country? And how are you going to pull it off in less than three weeks?

“It still makes me sweat when I’m asked that,” Caldwell said last month, 10 days before the transformation began.

Bristol was scheduled to host its second Sprint Cup race of the year on Aug. 20. It would have just 19 days to convert the half-mile track into a football field. When rain postponed the race from Saturday night to late Sunday afternoon, that schedule was quickly reduced to 18 days.

MORE: With big crowd, will fans be able to see the field?

As soon as the checkered flag flew, the track began a mammoth project that was already behind schedule.

What did it take to complete the project?

It started with more than 200 workers from 30 different companies using heavy equipment and machinery to move 450 truckloads of material into the track. Using 10,600 tons of rock and sand, construction workers installed a stone base to raise the infield 3 1/2 feet to make room for the field.

AstroTurf, with 15 employees on site, used more than 180,000 pounds each of silica and rubber infill to lay 100,200 feet of surface onto the base.

(Courtesy of David Crigger/BHC) https://images.daznservices.com/di/library/sporting_news/2b/a0/battle-at-bristol3-090816-bristol-herald-ftrjpg_1rnu68bozwbj1dgox6utncik0.jpg?t=177273815&w=500&quality=80

Workers install the field at Bristol. (Bristol Herald)

Local companies were contracted to clean out the track’s Goodyear tire building, drivers’ area and media center, and convert the three infield facilities into locker rooms and meeting rooms for the teams. Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol signage was erected all around the facility and 5,000 premium seats were installed inside the infield.

Lockers for the teams were slid into place. Sidelines, hash marks and yard markers were painted onto the field. More than 130 light towers and generators were installed in the surrounding campgrounds and 220 acres of grass was mowed around the 500-acre grounds.

Check out this time lapse of the transformation taking shape:

On game day, thousands of workers will be on site to coordinate parking and shuttles, including spots for more than 240 tour buses. Law enforcement from 19 different agencies will direct traffic and the track will have 21 guest services locations surrounding the facility. Levy Restaurants, the catering service for Bristol and Speedway Motorsports Inc., will supply 3 million ounces of water and 2.5 million ounces of Pepsi products, not to mention thousands of pounds of food.

On Labor Day, artists from the two schools arrived to paint the end zones Tennessee orange and Virginia Tech maroon. While they worked, cranes and heavy steel trucks arrived to construct a 140-foot-wide, 40-foot tall stage where Kenny Chesney will perform Friday night at the Bristol Tailgate Party.

“The process is quite the spectacle and a show unto itself,” Caldwell said of the transformation.

Packed house

The largest crowd to ever witness a college football game, an estimated 120,000 fans, filled Soldier Field in Chicago in 1927 for Notre Dame-USC. Three years ago, more than 115,000 filled Michigan Stadium for Notre Dame-Michigan.

The Battle at Bristol is expected to beat both those totals by more than 30,000. It will also attract fans from all 50 states and four foreign countries. The goal obviously is to shatter the college football attendance record, but there’s more to it than that.

“It is the goal to break the record, but it’s also the goal to showcase Bristol Motor Speedway to another audience and the other side of the sports world,” Caldwell said. “The NASCAR world knows Bristol Motor Speedway very well. It’s going to be fun to show it to the college sports world. It’s really fun to be able to put us on a different stage.”

MORE: The 25 largest college football stadiums

It is also an incredible opportunity for Tennessee and Virginia Tech. Both schools were allotted 40,000 tickets; Hart said UT sold its allotment in two days.

“That says a lot about our fan base and it says a lot about the excitement around this unbelievable opportunity,” he said. “You can’t put a value on the exposure for our university. You’re talking about a happening. The exposure will build toward a crescendo until kickoff, and you just can’t manufacture something of that nature. It’s hard to comprehend.”

When you walk into the football facilities at both schools, Battle at Bristol posters and artist renderings of the track/stadium are displayed prominently. Both schools have even used the game as a recruiting tool.

“This is the most unique opportunity for a player you could ever ask for, and we used that very wisely in recruiting,” Hart said. “You are going to get to play in front of the biggest crowd to ever see a football game at any level. Not too many people get this opportunity. This is a first, and they will be able to talk about this for a very, very long time.”

“We use it a lot,” Babcock added. “We use it as part of the energy of Virginia Tech football.”

The first big game

As Caldwell stood in the infield recently, looking up at Colossus, the world’s largest outdoor center-hung video display, and pointing out sight lines around the bowl-like stadium, he beamed with pride at what the track had accomplished and what lay ahead.

(Getty Images) https://images.daznservices.com/di/library/sporting_news/b0/3/jerry-caldwell-bristol-090716-getty-ftrjpg_rsiaur173hxu1o1six2m5agjq.jpg?t=110519783&w=500&quality=80

Bristol Motor Speedway president Jerry Caldwell (Getty Images)

“It’s been a long process, but even longer it’s been talked about,” he said. “It’s been 20 years it’s been discussed and kind of thrown out there. It’s exciting. Just the excitement of seeing this thing that we talked about for so long and our team worked so hard on, a lot of hours right now for the team, and to see it all come together is really gratifying.”

Caldwell predicts this won’t be the last football game, or non-NASCAR event, at Bristol.

“It’s always fun to be a part of history, and I really believe that is what’s happening here,” he said. “Motorsports and NASCAR are always going to be our core business, but this is putting us on a different path. It will be fun to see where it takes us.”

McCARTHY: ESPN crew excited for Bristol game

Wherever it leads, it likely won’t be as special or as big a spectacle as Saturday night’s game. The NASCAR prerace festivities at Bristol are among the most anticipated in the sport, with the stars introducing themselves, a paratrooper arriving with a giant American flag and Lee Greenwood belting out his trademark “God Bless the USA," followed by the roar of 40 700-horsepower engines.

Take that kind of passion and mix it with the color and pageantry and spirit of college football, and it is sure to be a sight and scene to behold.

And it’s going to be loud — as loud, at times, as 40 stock cars racing round the track.

“It’s probably going to be very similar to a NASCAR race. I think it will have that feel,” Caldwell said.

“We know what it’s like to have 150,000 people in this big bowl, because we’ve seen it for NASCAR races. We’ve never seen it for a college football game. You’ve never seen it when their favorite team comes out on the field, and you’re talking half the stadium. You’re close to that with Dale Earnhardt Jr., but it’s going to be really interesting to see that.”

(Getty Images) https://images.daznservices.com/di/library/sporting_news/7b/1f/bristol-fans-getty-ftrjpg_1snv1ltz32nk01w1psso46hxv4.jpg?t=175432271&w=500&quality=80

MORE: Dale Jr. to be guest picker on 'GameDay' at Bristol

Hart, who has attended races at Bristol, is used to seeing more than 100,000 Tennessee fans on Saturdays at Neyland Stadium. He has wondered for three years what it will be like to see those orange-clad fans packed into Bristol, facing off with the maroon-clad Hokies.



“I think so many people — and I’ve heard this for three years — want to be here to be able to tell their children and grandchildren that I was at that football game,” he said.

“I suspect there will be 300,000 people who will claim they were here.”