Bristol Motor Speedway Roasted Online Over Graphic Showing Racers Going Wrong Way

Bristol Motor Speedway took to Twitter on Thursday to promote a new tourism project for Northeastern Tennessee, but things went awry quickly. The “#PartnerPost” was humbled as fans of the Speedway and NASCAR pointed out the litany of errors in the possibly AI-generated illustration.

Most importantly, stock cars don’t drive clockwise around Bristol or any other track for that matter.

If you look past the cars turning right on an oval and going more than five wide on one of the narrowest tracks on the circuit, you’re still stuck trying to make out the numbers and words mirrored onto the cars and trackside advertisements.

While there is no official confirmation that the graphic is an AI image, one of the telltale signs of AI is that it has yet to master letters and numbers, and its attempts come out illegible and otherworldly. Other signs to look for include stray pixels, odd outlines, and random shapes; these can be seen through the background of the image as well.

This is the second time in 2024 that a racing entity has gotten flack over AI-based marketing. Back in January, Mahindra debuted an AI female racing ambassador instead of hiring one of the many women trying to create careers in motorsports.

Many fans came to Bristol's mentions to complain both about the image and the apparent AI usage.