Last season Bristol Motor Speedway showed the NASCAR Cup Series teams a couple of very different looks during the circuit’s two visits to the challenging half-mile in the Northeast Tennessee hills.
In the spring, teams faced a tire-management situation like they hadn’t seen on the concrete high-banks in quite some time. Denny Hamlin was able to figure out the puzzle quickly and scored a victory. Every driver said they had fun in the race and the fans loved it too.
In the fall, Kyle Larson and his crew set his No. 5 Chevy for maximum speed and ripped around the bullring like the old saying that is often used to describe racing at BMS, “like a fighter jet getting turned loose in a gymnasium.” Larson led a whopping 462 laps and won the race by a full seven seconds over his closest challenger. For Larson fans it couldn't get any better. Even for fans of other drivers they realized they were watching something very rare and special.
As teams sit down to discuss which Bristol they are likely to see at the Food City 500 Sunday at 3 p.m. (FS1, PRN Radio), a few crew chiefs and drivers are still scratching their heads. Will it be the tire-management chess match, or the wide open showtime fast-break speed show.
“This is the magic question of the weekend for the race teams,” Austin Cindric said. “The decisions are made today for the cars and they are packed away and done before we have any data from the track this weekend. Some of it has to do with the temperature. This weekend will teach the whole garage a lot about kind of what’s going on with the tires, the track and the prep.”
Hamlin will try to go back-to-back at Bristol’s spring race and also claim his third consecutive victory on the season. He is riding some momentum in the No. 11 Gibbs entry with wins the past two weeks at Darlington and Martinsville. Hamlin says he’s expecting the same super-fast Bristol that we saw last September.
“I would expect that we would have the normal Bristol (this year), where your tires don't wear that much, if it's the same tire,” Hamlin said. “Temperatures look to be up, so I would say that we would have kind of the normal Bristol that we've had most of the time.”
The one thing that is certain: every team will have to face the same challenge, no matter what it is. And that’s always what makes Bristol Motor Speedway fun.
Speaking of fun, Larson is set for his second trifecta attempt of the season. After coming up one race short at Homestead in mid-March, Larson will try to sweep the weekend by competing in the Craftsman Truck race, the Xfinity race and the Cup race. Only Kyle Busch has turned that hat trick in the past, and he has done it twice, both coming at Bristol, his first in 2010 and second in 2017.
“Hopefully we can go there and be fast again and control the race like we did last fall,” Larson said. “Even if it doesn’t go that way, I feel like our car is good enough to run up front. I just hope we can contend for a win and that will be great. We will give it our best shot and try to execute to the best of our ability in all three divisions.”
Another storyline to watch is Jesse Love making his Cup Series debut at the controls of the No. 33 Chevy for Richard Childress Racing. Love also will be competing in the Xfinity Series SciAps 300, where he drives the No. 2 Chevy full-time for RCR. He said it was the perfect fit for him to make his Cup debut at the iconic .533-mile oval.
“I love concrete, the fact you can run multiple lanes and the steep banking, I enjoy all those things about Bristol,” Love said. “When I look at how intimidated I was the first time I was there, I have really come a long way to love Bristol and now it’s one of my favorites on the schedule.”
In addition to Hamlin and Larson, there are a slew of drivers who run well at Bristol and should be considered among the pre-race favorites, including Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, Chris Buescher, William Byron, Ty Gibbs, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Tyler Reddick and Kyle Busch, the active driver with the most Bristol Cup victories (9).
Some emerging stars are also worth keeping an eye on, including Carson Hocevar, Shane Van Gisbergen, recent winner in the Wood Brothers famed 21 Josh Berry, and Noah Gragson, who has won at Bristol multiple times in the Xfinity Series.
The highly-anticipated weekend opens with the WEATHER GUARD Truck Race, a 250-lap race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series under the lights on Friday, April 11 (7:30 p.m., FS1 and PRN Radio), and continues Saturday afternoon on April 12 with the SciAps 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race (5 p.m., The CW, PRN Radio). Bush’s Beans Practice and Bush’s Beans Qualifying will be held for all three series both Friday and Saturday. The weekend culminates Sunday afternoon with the running of the historic Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series race (April 13, 3 p.m., FS1 and PRN Radio).
In addition to cheering on their favorite drivers on the track, Bristol Motor Speedway fans will definitely want to take advantage of so many activities to make a complete weekend of family fun. There will be great video entertainment provided by Colossus TV, the world's largest center-hung video screen, premium VIP experiences, tailgating, on-site camping, concerts and other entertainment at the Food City Fan Zone Stage headlined by Trackside Live with Kenny Wallace and John Roberts, great food and beverages in the concession stands throughout the property, and so much more.
Single-day tickets for the Food City 500 weekend start as low as $69 for Sunday’s Food City 500 and $46 for Saturday’s SciAps 300 Xfinity Series race. To purchase tickets, please visit www.bristolmotorspeedway.com or call the BMS ticket sales center at (866) 415-4158.
