The Bristol Night Race has long been NASCAR’s unofficial fourth or fifth crown-jewel event. What once was the rowdiest summer spectacular, and one of the hardest tickets in sports to come by, has in recent years has been a shadow of its former self.
Ask a fan not in a No. 5 hat who was there how they felt about things, and you’ll get an even more muted response. While Kyle Larson dominated and few cars could cleanly pass, would the race been improved with a bump-and-run or some cage-rattling late in the going? This week, Steve Leffew and Trenton Worsham share their history as they knew it in 2-Headed Monster.
The Fastest Car Won Without Theatrics
I have a unique perspective on what happened this weekend at Bristol, being that I was there covering the weekend for Frontstretch. Going into the weekend, the talk and story were all about the tires, as Goodyear mentioned the tires being brought were the same as in the spring. Then practice happened, and it was foreshadowing what everyone did not want to happen: a dud.
The Bristol night race was not going to be what we had hoped to see.
Several drivers, such as Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney were among those who said it had felt the way it did the last few years racing at Bristol, as opposed to the spring 2024 race after their practice and qualifying sessions. PJ1 traction compound was added to the bottom before the fall race to make it a multi-groove race, but alas, it did not help.
Larson led all but 38 of the 500 laps in an elimination race that saw hardly any passing. Larson and some others have all defended the race, saying that fans wanted green-white-checkered finishes or more wrecks to make it ‘good’, which 72% said it wasn’t in Jeff Gluck’s weekly poll on X.
The issue wasn’t a good old-fashioned butt-kicking, but rather the expectations of something we did not see, and what the race was as well. This isn’t an isolated issue, as Martinsville Speedway and Richmond Raceway have also turned into duds, with Richmond losing a date in 2025 in favor of an international race in Mexico City.
I observed Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe swapping the same spot and running side-by-side for a good portion of the race, Larson and other leaders could not lap the slower cars. It would have been pure cinema to see Martin Truex Jr. carve his way through the field after speeding on pit road, all just to barely make the next round. But thanks to what we have, and maybe don’t have as well (aka more horsepower), he was stuck in the back and his hopes for a championship in his final full-time season was dead.
One of the people who didn’t hold back was Hamlin’s crew chief Chris Gabehart, who highlighted that the cars’ similarities equalized the drivers. He finished by saying that the days of old Bristol were over.
Short-track racing, NASCAR’s backbone, is in trouble with the Next Gen car. Goodyear has been tasked to fix a problem they didn’t create with the tires, but regardless of whose issue it is, what we saw Saturday night collectively was a historic venue turn into one great nap.
The best thing about the entire race was that the best car and driver that night won without something late taking it away and giving the illusion that it was better than it was. – Trenton Worsham
A Glimpse of Old Bristol Would Have Flipped Perceptions
Fans and media personalities really aren’t sure what they want anymore.
One week we’re hearing how awful overtime is and how it should be scrapped. The next week, a driver puts on a dominant performance and the sky is falling because the result was a bit boring.
Let me tell you something, there always have been and always will be some less-than-exciting finishes. NASCAR has come up with a car and rules package that creates close racing on the intermediates. This has caused too many people to think that every finish needs to be like the three-wide photo finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway or the exciting finish between Larson and Chris Buescher in the spring race at Kansas Speedway.
If a caution had come out some time in the last 10 laps at Bristol Motor Speedway, it would’ve induced a far more exciting finish. Larson would’ve probably been bumped, or perhaps wrecked, and a ripple effect would’ve ensued with multiple overtime attempts. Several cars probably would’ve been wrecked and someone who didn’t run up front all night probably would’ve won by surviving the calamity. Fans would’ve been talking about the fights after the race and who wronged who, and the sky wouldn’t be falling anymore. Yet, some would continue to slander overtime.
There is no pleasing everyone, but an overtime Wreckapalooza would’ve had people talking about a lot of things besides how bad the car is.
I get a kick out of so many people claiming this was the worst Bristol race they’ve ever seen. Let an old guy tell you a story to put things in perspective. Rusty Wallace won the 1999 Food City 500 at Bristol, and there were just 10 cars on the lead lap when the race ended. Sound familiar?
The 2024 Bass Pro Shops Night Race had 10 cars on finish on the lead lap. In 1999, the only way to pass was to move someone out of the bottom lane. I would challenge anyone to go back and watch that race and find an example of a car making a pass on another car from the top lane. In 2024, passing from either lane was difficult, but certainly possible. People like to say Bristol was so much better before the repave. Is this an example of viewing the past with rose-colored glasses?
Blaney started 22nd, and by the end of the first stage he was up to 11th. Blaney was making a pass once every 11 or 12 laps, and doing it without wrecking anyone, or sending anyone into the marbles. Some will cite the example of Truex being penalized for speeding, sent to the back, and being unable to make up ground as an example that the race was terrible. I see your Truex and raise you a Blaney. When Truex was asked about it post-race, he said the following:
“It’s track position here,” he said. “Once you get back there in the pack, it burns your tires off really quick. We just couldn’t get up through there.”
Find me a time at a short-track race in NASCAR history where track position wasn’t paramount. How many times in the early 2000s would we see excellent cars get wrecked in practice or qualifying, start from the back and have the leader at their back bumper before the first pit sequence?
Yes, a late-race caution and overtime finish would’ve made some fans happy. It would’ve flipped the perception from some of the people complaining the loudest. But that is only because they don’t have a recollection of history that is based in reality, and they’ve become accustomed to excellent finishes being more common than they’ve ever been before. – Steve Leffew
Steve Leffew joined Frontstretch in 2023 and covers the Xfinity Series. He has served honorably in the United States Air Force and and lives in Wisconsin.
