A record crowd for a regular-season Major League Baseball game got to see all the pomp and pageantry with the MLB Speedway Classic before the rain washed out the game itself in the bottom of the first inning.

When Larry Carrier opened what would become Bristol Motor Speedway in 1961, this image never crossed his mind: an MLB player standing at home plate near the racing surface waiting on a fastball from the mound 60 feet,