Weather
NASCAR moved the start time up a considerable amount as tonight’s Bass Pro Shops Bristol Night Race (6:30 p.m. ET, USA, PRN) will now have a green flag set for 6:35 p.m. ET. Originally it was slated for 7:47 p.m. ET.
They decided to move it up due to the forecast for potential rain coming later in the night. There’s a 50-60% chance of rain tonight so if and when it falls could play a role in this race.
That’s because this is an elimination race and once you get to the end of the second stage (Lap 250) the race is official. By going green over an hour earlier than scheduled could allow this race to get to halfway.
Here’s the kicker, what if it does rain past halfway. How late do they try to get this thing in? With the second round being set after this race, it’s a big decision on how long to wait before you pull the plug.
With this race being in the Tennessee mountains, you never know how long the rain could stay around too.
Which is why I’m watching how much moving the race up an hour will help and then if the rain does come, when does it come in regards to how many laps are completed and if it’s past halfway, how long do they wait it out?
Can Bell Turn Pole Into Win?
This is the best qualifying effort out of the Toyota camp since last year’s race on the ROVAL. They have 5 cars in the top 9 of the starting lineup including a front row lockout. Ironically enough, Christopher Bell won that race.
Bell is on the pole.
The thing is, this was his sixth pole of the season and a clean sweep of poles in the opening round. He’s not won a race in his previous five tries this year either.
He finished 32nd in Fontana, 29th in Loudon, 13th in Michigan, 23rd in Darlington and 8th last week in Kansas from the pole. What happens on Saturday night?
Bell’s only win this season came on this very track on Easter Night. However, it was also on dirt. Does that play a role into his psyche at all?
Bell enters the race +13 in points.
Stage Points
Getting off to a good start matters this weekend in the sense that not all 16 playoff drivers start can start in the top 10. If you do the math, at the very least, six of them can’t score stage points. With advancing to the second round or not coming down to likely a mere few points, you need to position yourself up front by the end of the first stage.
8 of the top 11 starters are at or near the playoff bubble. Bell (+13 in 10th) starts on the pole. Denny Hamlin (+49, 3rd in points) starts second. William Byron (+41, 4th in points) and Michael McDowell (-40, 16th in points) share Row 2. Martin Truex Jr. (-7, 13th in points) rolls off 5th. Brad Keselowski (+33, 4th in points) starts sixth. Bubba Wallace (-19, 14th in points) starts 9th. Ryan Blaney (+25, 6th in points) will be coming from 11th.
Can they get those valuable stage points tonight?
With Kevin Harvick (+7) and Joey Logano (+12) starting 21st and 28th respectively, this is a great chance for Truex to get on the plus side of the cutline coming to the final stage.
The thing also is, several drivers have told me that stage racing has altered your Bristol setups. In the past, you used to set your car up for the second half of the race. You’d go into it with a car that you knew would be good from Lap 250 on. You can’t do that anymore. You have to set it up for Lap 1 because of how crucial stage points are. You can’t give them up.
The playoff bubble is tight and stage points can be the reason you move onto the Round of 12 or are eliminated instead, especially this year with so many drivers within a few points above or below the cut line.
Without much practice and without a race here this spring on concrete, you better hope that from Lap 1 on, you have the right communication to work on the car as the race goes on and stay ahead of it. If not, you could score stage points in the first stage but falter as the race goes on. You need to be setup from the get-go but tinker with the car as the race goes on to remain relevant.
Does Anyone New Bump Their Ways In?
Martin Truex Jr. (-7), Bubba Wallace (-19), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-22) and Michael McDowell (-40) are trying to bump their ways back in. Can they do so on Saturday night?
The odds are good that at least one of them does. 7 of the 9 years someone did including 2 of the 3 in Bristol.
Truex starting 5th and Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano coming from 21st and 28th respectively is a big storyline in my opinion. Harvick leads Truex by just seven points coming into the night. Logano is 12 up. However, if Truex can stay in the top five and Harvick and Logano fail to get any stage points, he very well could leap at least one, if not both of them heading to the final 250 laps of this race.
Then what role does the potential rain play from there on out?
Wallace (starting 9th), McDowell (starting 4th) and Stenhouse Jr. (starting 25th) each likely need to win. The furthest back on points someone came back from was -23 in 2015 by Kevin Harvick. He had to win though. The furthest back on points someone made up was -18. The bottom 3 right now are all -19 back or further.
Wallace was 29th in this race last year and 16th in 2021. On short tracks this season, he’s finished 13th, 22nd, 9th, 12th, 8th, 12th. He has just two top 10 finishes in the last 14 races on the season too.
McDowell was 11th last year but 13th, sixth, 19th, 22nd, 13th, 22nd on like tracks this year. He has 1 top 10 in his last 9 starts on the season and 5 of his last 7 seeing him finish 22nd or worse. He was 32nd in Darlington and 26th in Kansas.
Stenhouse Jr. is better here but he’s never won. He finished 13th or worse in his last 7 starts on the season including 16th and 23rd in the playoffs.
Which leaves this really up to Truex. He’s the surprising one to even be in this situation. Issues in Darlington left him 18th. An early crash in Kansas saw him finish last. The regular season champion is on the brink of elimination. This is not a strong track for him either.
He was last here last season and has had only two Top-10 finishes in his last 19 Bristol tries. He’s been 20th or worse in 14 of the last 17 there at that.
That’s why despite two wins and four straight Top-7 finishes on short tracks this season and starting up front, I’m worried about his chances.
The regular season champion though has made it to the Round of 8 every year and to the Championships 4 in all but one (Harvick 2020).
The second-place driver in playoff points made the final round in 4 of the 6 years too and all but one has at least made it to the Round of 8.
I maintain that the final spots into the second round will come down to who doesn’t have issues. The playoff this season has seen a lot of attrition among playoff drivers. 7 drivers had issues in the Southern 500 and 4 more in Kansas.
Denny Hamlin’s loose wheel in Darlington to Christopher Bell and Martin Truex Jr’s woes to Bubba Wallace’s spin to Kyle Busch getting into the wall to Michael McDowell crashing and Kevin Harvick’s bad luck, it was a bum deal for them.
Last Sunday, William Byron spun, Chris Buescher crashed and Bubba Wallace and Martin Truex Jr. cut down tires and found the wall.
That plus Last year’s race at Bristol seeing a lot of issues too is reason of attrition being a thing on Saturday night.
Last August was the 1st race with the Next Gen’s at Bristol, it proved to be a race of attrition. It started early and often and was very much manufacturer specific. Does it happen again?
8 of the 16 playoff drivers last year had issues.
In Stage 1, Ford’s were battling right front tire problems. It started with both Harrison Burton and JJ Yeley on Lap 41 and carried on through the end of the stage. Austin Cindric and then Ryan Blaney were the next 2 up on Lap 91.
If you noticed a theme?
Team Penske and their alliance car with Burton at the Wood Brothers.
“You never know what can happen and having that flat, there’s nothing that we can do about it,” said Ryan Blaney last year. “You’re lucky you have that cushion going into this race. The most unfortunate part is our car was super fast, too. That was the terrible thing about it. The worst part about it now, looking back. The car was really good and just had no indication. It seemed like a lot of guys had right-front problems tonight, but I’m proud of everybody for getting it fixed up and just out there to finish the race. There really wasn’t much we could do, just log laps and let everything play itself out. That’s why you try to have two good races beforehand because you never know when you’re gonna need some points.”
Stage 2 was power steering problems plaguing the Toyota’s. Bubba Wallace hit pit road on Lap 182 then Ty Gibbs followed seconds later. Each having their power steering bust and leaking all over their right front tires.
16 laps later, Martin Truex Jr. joined them behind the wall with the exact same issue.
Then on Lap 233, it was Denny Hamlin having a right front going down.
The final stage saw more chaos.
On Lap 269, Kyle Busch’s turn with a terminal mechanical failure occurred as he pulled behind the wall with not only his car going up in smoke, but his championship chances as well.
Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Cindric again and Christopher Bell each had tire problems in this final stint to the finish.
“It blew the seal out and pushed all the (power steering) fluid out on the right-front tire. Just unbelievable,” Truex Jr. said. “What did (Kevin) Harvick say? Crappy parts. … You literally can’t drive the car here without power steering. You lose it, you’re done. It’s been a horrible string of luck for us, and we had another strong car tonight. We were working our way forward, every run going forward. Ready for this year to be over and start over.”
Most of this can be tied to a number of factors but the glaring one is the inaugural trip here with this car and not much to base their setups off with. A high banked concrete track with lots of loads on these tires and cars can easily cause mechanical failures like we’ve seen.
To have it in a playoff elimination race?
Chaos.
Short Track Package
There’s no denying the fact that the short track package has been lacking the last couple of seasons. Credit the Next Gen for that decline in performance. Last year’s Bristol race wasn’t what we all thought it would be. Heck, none of the short tracks were.
NASCAR tried this offseason to made adjustments to make the package better. It hasn’t worked. They’ve even tested this year to try for more mandates to help. By all accounts, they’re not helping either.
With all the cut races being on short tracks (Bristol, Martinsville) and road courses (Charlotte ROVAL) and even the championship being decided on a track with this package (Phoenix), can we see better racing this time around or are we in trouble?
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race last year got folks perked up. A one lane bottom groove race track that if you wanted to pass, you had to use the bumper. That’s the old Bristol. Would the old Bristol make a return for the main event?
The new Bristol has progressive banking to where you can run multiple grooves in the corners with the high lane around the top being one of the preferred lanes.
However, fans were begging for that to go away and a return to the old way. The truck race proved that it can happen.
The track sprayed PJ1 on the bottom and 4 feet off the bottom lane to. It’s adding grip to the low lane in hopes of making this the preferred groove.
The Cup race was far from it. The exact opposite or so to speak. The high line was the preferred line again tonight and featured a race where the bumper wasn’t once used and 12 lead changes among 6 drivers ensued.
It leads to the question again on if Bristol is in the right place on the schedule with this package. Several drivers have warned over the last few years that a short track in the playoffs is risky because you can’t take the risk of collecting damage early and costing yourself stage points. As a result, you get some follow the leader racing.
Then with the short track package badly needing some help to spice up the racing, you get a parade to where the only drama occurred due to mechanical failures.
To have just 12 lead changes and only a couple of them for on track passes for the top spot and just one real crash that wasn’t sparked by a tire going down, this wasn’t very Bristol like.
“It was pretty tough. We pitted in front of the 17, so just kind of the way the year has gone. Just went from having a chance to lead the parade to being a part of the parade,” Kevin Harvick said last year. “Just difficult to pass. Parted it way too fast through the corners. Can’t race.”
With this new car, one part to it is an increase in tire size. That bigger tires lead to more grip in the turns and as a result, you get higher cornering speeds.
Denny Hamlin said it felt like they were going quicker in the corners than they were on the straights. With minimal tire fall off outside of the ones that blew, it just doesn’t create for very good racing.
“Had good track position from our qualifying effort but passing was just impossible,” he said. “It was just a type of day where you needed to stay up front at all costs and we just couldn’t quite do it and ended up having a blown tire that set us back and we were trying to play catch up from that point. (The Next Gen car) was tough. I would like to see the racing improve overall. Some lap time variation a little bit. We’re just running around there and it’s like we’re running faster in the corners than we are on the straightaways. Just extremely hard to pass. We had some steering issues, and it looks like our Toyota teammates also had steering issues. We just battled through it and held on to a ninth place today. … We can win anywhere we go to. We’ll go to Texas and try to win like we always do. Just need to get a good, solid round going. Just seems like mechanical stuff with this Next Gen and wrecks are the X-factor in moving on so you just have to be really consistent and with five races to go, that’s when you have to start winning.”
For a short track to work, you need slower corning speeds and more tire fall off. When you get neither, it makes for a tough night.
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