BRISTOL, Tenn. — Now that was a race at Bristol Motor Speedway, baby!
The Food City 500 on Sunday afternoon (March 17) not only was the best race at Bristol in years, not only the best short track race of the Next Gen era, but it may very well have been the best pure race of the past decade.
I was entertained from the drop of the green flag to the waving of the black-and-white checkered. I was on the edge of my seat nearly all 500 laps.
And the huge factor that made this race so great was the extreme tire wear. Tires didn’t last much more than 40 laps before they started cording. Teams only got nine sets of tires. You do the math.
Goodyear did allow the teams to use one additional set of tires, but outside of that, teams had to make it work. And that made the race frickin’ awesome.
Because the teams had to make it work, drivers had to manage how much they were abusing the tires in order to make them last until the end. That right there is quintessential NASCAR.
NASCAR was founded as being the ultimate test of man and machine. Not only did the driver have to last the distance while being better than their peers, but the car had to hold up for the entirety. That was the case much throughout the first 50 years or so of NASCAR, but in the last 25 years, it had gone away. Cars became more durable to the point where now you have races where the entire field finishes sometimes.
All but one car held up in Sunday’s race, but the tires falling apart was a throwback to the days of NASCAR old. As race winner Denny Hamlin and his crew chief Chris Gabehart mentioned in their postrace presser, for once we had a race where the big thing wasn’t how well you air-blocked.
It was also a connector to grassroots racing. It’s common in late model racing around the country for a race to come down to tire management.
You notice who looked the best on Sunday? Hamlin and Gabehart have strong late model backgrounds, as well as Josh Berry and his crew chief Rodney Childers, who showed a lot of speed before ultimately finishing 12th. Martin Truex Jr. finished second — and his dad was a great grassroots racer.
Every lap wasn’t a qualifying lap, like NASCAR seems to have become in recent years. A driver could be aggressive and burn up his tires getting to the front, or he could be conservative and rise up the ranks as others had tire issues.
That led to a lot of comers and goers, and it also led to the race setting a new record for lead changes in a short track. The longest run of consecutive laps led by anyone was Ty Gibbs with 42 straight laps led. There was a 60-lap run in the middle of the race where no driver led more than 11 consecutive laps.
That led to the race feeling almost like a superspeedway race with the whole field practically stacked on top of each other. Except it was at a short track, and there was beating and banging aplenty.
From that perspective, it felt like the Bristol of old except even better. A driver could do the bump and run to pass or they could use the outside thanks to the progressive banking. Once the leaders hit lapped traffic or came upon someone slowing with tire issues, it was complete mayhem.
But it wasn’t a wreck-fest. Despite the entire field having tire issues and several cars spinning out, Zane Smith was the only driver who failed to finish. The race ended with a 121-lap green flag run, and yet it was still super tight with Hamlin getting the better of Truex at the very end.
That’s great racing. And yes, maybe the tires could’ve worn slightly less. It would’ve been nice if the tires laid down rubber on the track on other lanes besides just the bottom where the resin was put down.
But the combination of close competition and problem solving in real time made for riveting content.
Gabehart said the race basically played out like a football game where your entire game plan is lost right at kickoff. Seeing the drivers and crew chiefs have to come up with a plan on the fly displayed just how good they really are. Hamlin said this win meant a lot because he had a lot more to do with the performance than normal.
Fans appreciate when they can tell a driver is working hard behind the wheel. That’s what made this year’s Atlanta Motor Speedway race so popular. And on Sunday, you could tell the drivers had their work cut out for them.
I couldn’t have asked for a better race at Bristol. It honestly reminded me of the NASCAR and Bristol I fell in love with back in the early 2000s.
So while some may heavily criticize Goodyear for what happened on Sunday, I plead that they bring tires with similar falloff to all of the short tracks. Think how great Richmond Raceway and Martinsville Speedway could be in a few weeks.
Please, Goodyear, please give us more races with tons of tire wear.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.