Eric Church, Award-Winning Artist for Single of the Year Nominee “Talladega,” Set to be Honorary Pace Car Driver for Talladega Superspeedway’s CampingWorld.com 500 on Sunday, Oct. 25
TALLADEGA, Ala. – Country Music Association and four-time Academy of Country Music Award winner Eric Church, who is currently nominated for five CMA Awards, including Single of the Year for “Talladega”, will serve as the Honorary “Pace Car Driver” for the CampingWorld.com 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, October 25.
Church, nominated for CMA’s Entertainer of the Year, will lead the 43-driver starting grid around the biggest and baddest race track on the planet prior to the start of the third and final race of the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup in which 12 eligible drivers for the title will be reduced to eight at the checkered flag. Driving on the track’s mammoth, 33-degree high banked turns in the Official Chevrolet SS Pace Car; Church will lead the field to the green flag to start the much anticipated CampingWorld.com 500, which is set for 1:30 p.m. CDT.
Through tireless work, innovation and old-fashioned entertaining, the EMI Records Nashville recording artist, in addition to Single of the Year and Entertainer of the Year, is also up for Male Vocalist of the Year, Song of the Year for “Like a Wrecking Ball,” and Music Event of the Year for “Raise ‘Em Up” with Keith Urban.
Church’s February 2014, release The Outsiders was that year’s top-selling country album and has continued to surge in 2015. Church logged another No. 1 from the GRAMMY Awards-nominated album with “Talladega” and set a number of venue attendance records around the nation on The Outsiders Tour, including a stop at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. He also headlined the opening of Nashville’s new Ascend Amphitheater with a pair of critically acclaimed, sold-out nights that showcased Church’s ability to hold a crowd of thousands in rapt attention with just an acoustic guitar, vocals and his songwriting abilities.
Although Church has already built a reputation as a restless creative force while blazing an unconventional path to country superstardom, The Outsiders represents an audacious quantum leap. The aggressive set, which consists almost entirely of Church’s compositions or co-compositions, finds the iconoclastic singer-songwriter-guitarist covering a dizzying amount of musical and lyrical ground, taking advantage of a wide range of sonic options to construct an adventurous, consistently thrilling ride. The result is Church’s most revealing, personally-charged statement yet—and one that challenges many of the accepted rules of contemporary country music.
The CampingWorld.com 500 is part of a race weekend that will also include the fred’s 250 Powered by Coca-Cola NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) race. The CampingWorld.com 500 will return to be the sixth race and final race of the Contender Round in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The green flag drops at 1:30 p.m. CDT on Sunday, Oct. 25.
Fans can witness pre-race activities for the CampingWorld.com 500 with a Sunday “Pit Pass Upgrade” for $75 (in addition to an admission ticket), which allows access to pre-race festivities including: Driver Introductions, Driver Question/Answer Session, view of the Red Carpet Entry to the Drivers Meeting, and access to pit road prior to the start of the CampingWorld.com 500.
Check out www.talladegasuperspeedway.com for more information or call 1-877-Go2-DEGA.
About Eric Church
The Country Music Association and four-time Academy of Country Music Award winner finished 2014 as country music’s top-selling artist, with the year’s highest debut and sales of any release in the format as the critical and commercial success The Outsiders reached Platinum status, marking more than one million albums sold. Debuting at No. 1 on both the Billboard Top 200 Albums Chart and Top Country Albums chart, The Outsiders garnered GRAMMY, CMA and ACM Album of the Year nominations and features his No.1 hits “Give Me Back My Hometown” and “Talladega” as well as his current single “Like A Wrecking Ball”. The Outsiders is the follow-up to Church’s Platinum-certified album CHIEF, named the 2012 Album of the Year by CMA and GRAMMY-nominated for Best Country Album. The LP featured five Top 20 singles: “Homeboy” (certified Platinum for sales in excess of 1 million); the Top 10 “Like Jesus Does” and the Top 5 “Creepin’” (both certified Gold for sales in excess of 500,000); and two No. 1 hits “Drink in My Hand” (certified Platinum) and “Springsteen” (certified Double Platinum for sales in excess of 2 million singles). Church’s 2006 debut album, Sinners Like Me and his sophomore album Carolina (2009) are both RIAA Gold-certified.
For more information or tickets, visit www.EricChurch.com.
About Talladega Superspeedway
Talladega Superspeedway is NASCAR’s Most Competitive Track (record 88 lead changes in 188 laps), most banked (33 degrees), and longest (2.66 miles), as well as the most fun and fan-friendly, offering up hundreds of acres of free camping, amazing kids ticket prices and special offers for military members and college students. The historic venue, built in 1969, is NASCAR’s “Party Capital” thanks to the track’s infamous infield, which features the traditional Saturday Night concert and the world renowned Talladega Blvd, home of the “Big One on the Blvd” party. It is the site of the most comfortable seats in motorsports, large video viewing boards (a new initiative planned for future implementation at all ISC tracks) lining the frontstretch and endless activities for fans throughout its event weekends. Log on to www.talladegasupespeedway.com or call 877-Go2-DEGA for more information.
