Bristol Motor Speedway is used to being covered in racing colors.
This weekend, add Dolly pink.
During Bass Pro Shops Night Race week, Sept. 17-19, Bristol will honor Dolly Parton with pink butterfly signs around the track, special decals for NASCAR teams and a giant banner where fans can leave messages for the East Tennessee legend. The tribute was created with approval from the Dollywood Foundation.
For a place that calls itself “The World’s Fastest Half-Mile,” it will be a very visible salute to a woman whose story began less than two hours down the road in the Smoky Mountains.
Dolly’s butterfly is going on the track — and the cars
Bristol created a special tribute logo built around one of Dolly’s best-known symbols: a pink butterfly with “Dolly” written across the center.
Fans will see it on track walls and in other spots throughout the speedway property. Bristol is also making a race-ready version of the decal available to teams competing in NASCAR’s three national series.
That means the Dolly tribute may not just sit beside the racing.
It could actually race around Bristol.
The speedway is also putting a 15-foot-wide, 7-foot-tall banner in the Fan Zone. Fans will be able to sign it and write their own messages to Dolly throughout the weekend. Her music will also play around the property during race events.
Bristol Motor Speedway President and General Manager Jerry Caldwell said Dolly’s influence stretched well outside the region while her connection to East Tennessee remained especially strong.
“Dolly’s impact reaches far beyond East Tennessee, but she’ll always have a special place here at home,” Caldwell said.
That “here at home” part is what makes Bristol a fitting place for this particular tribute.
Dolly became an international star, but Tennessee never had to work very hard to claim her. Her East Tennessee roots stayed central to her music, philanthropy and public identity throughout her career.
At Bristol, those roots meet another Tennessee institution.
This is already a huge Bristol weekend
The Dolly tribute is being added to a Night Race weekend that was already packed.
The three-day schedule begins Thursday, Sept. 17, with the Bush’s Beans 200 ARCA Menards Series race and the UNOH 250 presented by Ohio Logistics. The Truck Series event also opens its Chase for the championship. Bristol’s Foam Party follows the racing.
Friday brings qualifying and the Food City 300 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase race, followed by a Tim Dugger concert.
Then comes Saturday.
The 500-lap Bass Pro Shops Night Race is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 19.
And Bristol has filled the hours before the green flag with enough celebrities, music and spectacle to make the pre-race show an event of its own.
Academy Award winner Brad Pitt is set to serve as a grand marshal. Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden, a Nashville native, will serve as the celebrity pace-car driver.
WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair is also scheduled to appear.
Brian Kelley will perform a pre-race concert. A children’s choir will sing the national anthem. Lee Greenwood will perform “God Bless the USA” while a bald eagle flies above the stadium, followed by a flyover involving two U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft.
That is a lot happening before 500 laps even begin.
Bristol will also remember Kyle Busch
Dolly will not be the only major figure honored during the weekend.
Fans are expected to receive yellow “Rowdy Towels,” and Lap 18 of Saturday’s race will be used for a tribute to Kyle Busch and his extraordinary record at Bristol.
Bristol announced the Lap 18 tribute in August as part of its race-week plans.
Put together, the weekend is becoming something larger than a typical NASCAR stop.
There will still be qualifying, playoff pressure, pit strategy and hundreds of laps under the lights. But Bristol is also using one of its biggest crowds of the year to remember people whose names are tied to Tennessee culture and the speedway itself.
And the Dolly tribute is likely to be impossible to miss.
The butterfly fits Dolly for a reason
The pink butterfly is not random decoration.
Butterflies became closely associated with Dolly over the years, appearing in her imagery and even inspiring the name of Dollywood’s Wildwood Grove centerpiece, The Wildwood Tree.
At Bristol, the symbol gives organizers a simple way to make the tribute recognizable from across a racetrack.
A pink butterfly against Bristol’s concrete walls is not exactly subtle.
That seems appropriate.
This is the same speedway famous for roaring engines, steep banking, stadium lights and a crowd packed almost on top of the racing surface. A quiet little memorial would probably disappear.
Instead, Dolly’s symbol will be on walls, signs and potentially race cars.
Her songs will be playing.
Fans will be writing their own messages.
For three days, one of East Tennessee’s loudest places will be remembering one of East Tennessee’s most famous voices.
A particularly Tennessee combination
There are not many weekends where Dolly Parton, NASCAR, Brad Pitt, Ric Flair, an Indy 500 champion, country music, a bald eagle and two Air Force C-130s could all fit on the same schedule.
At Bristol, somehow, it works.
The Night Race has always been part sporting event and part Tennessee spectacle. This year’s Dolly tribute adds something more personal.
Bristol is only a few hours from the Sevier County mountains that shaped so much of Dolly’s life and music. Many fans walking through the gates this weekend will have grown up with those songs, visited Dollywood or simply regarded Dolly as part of the cultural furniture of East Tennessee.
Now they will see her butterfly when they look toward the track.
And some of NASCAR’s cars may carry it with them when the engines fire.
For one weekend at Bristol, Tennessee’s most famous half-mile is getting a little more pink.
Sources
Bristol Motor Speedway announcement detailing the Dolly Parton butterfly tribute, fan banner, NASCAR decals and race-week schedule.
Bristol Motor Speedway 2026 news archive confirming Night Race weekend announcements and additional event tributes.
Explore Bristol event listing for the Sept. 19 Bass Pro Shops Night Race and race-day schedule.
Forbes reporting on Nashville native Josef Newgarden’s role as Bristol’s celebrity pace-car driver.
