KANSAS CITY, Kan. — There was a 10-alarm fire in NASCAR world following the conclusion of last Saturday’s (Sept. 21) night race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The tire wear that the NASCAR Cup Series teams saw at Bristol in March was completely absent last week despite heavy anticipation, and there was a raging blaze on social media among drivers, fans and media members alike after one of the most prestigious races of the year turned into an absolute dud.
The race scored just a 27.2% in Jeff Gluck’s “Good Race Poll,” a shockingly low number considering that every Bristol race had scored at least 60% in the past, and 2021, the final race with the Gen 6 car, scored over 95%.
Perhaps it was the sky-high expectations that were placed on Bristol after an incredible race in March that led to such a fierce backlash. Maybe it was Martin Truex Jr. running top five all night, only to drop to 24th with a speeding penalty and stay there the rest of the night, unable to make a pass. Maybe it was the fact that race winner Kyle Larson led 462 of the 500 laps and won by more than seven seconds. Maybe it was that the building frustration with the Next Gen’s inability to race on short tracks had finally reached a breaking point and boiled over within the fanbase.
Whatever the reason was — and it’s probably some combination of all the above — the discourse surrounding short track racing has reached a crisis point.
On Actions Detrimental, Denny Hamlin was of the opinion that the short track disappointments are a car problem that NASCAR is trying to fix with tires, as that’s the most economical fix available. The Teardown with Gluck and Jordan Bianchi went even further, wondering how long short track racing can survive in its current state until fans reach indifference and malaise with tracks that had formerly been the series’ bread and butter.
Even NASCAR itself admitted that Saturday’s show fell well short of expectations.
One driver who immediately took to social media to say the opposite? The man who dominated it.
Of course, Larson had the greatest night of everyone present in Thunder Valley, but he also went on the DJD Reloaded podcast during the week to explain why he decided to hit send.
“I think just a culmination of everything,” Larson said. “Fans, NASCAR.”
He mostly stressed frustration at conversation surrounding tire wear, as March was the exception and not the rule.
“Nobody really has the answers, so it’s hard to point fingers at people, but it kind of just burns me out a little to talk about tire wear, like it’s always been a thing at Bristol,” Larson said. “There’s only one race where we had tire wear in the last 10 or 11 years that I’ve been going there. We were baffled why the tires didn’t wear, but I think we should have been more baffled about why we did have tire wear randomly the one time.
“I think Bristol’s Bristol. It’s always fast-paced, really hard to pass. Even guys that have good cars and get stuck [in the back] know it.”
And while Larson acknowledged the difficulties the Next Gen car has experienced on these tracks, he says it hasn’t changed the enjoyment of holding the steering wheel at Bristol.
“It’s just nothing new,” Larson said. “I would say, yeah, it’s harder to pass than it was with the old car, but it’s still fast paced, but it’s Bristol.
“All of us drivers love it no matter what.”
During Saturday’s (Sept. 28) meeting sessions at Kansas, Larson further clarified his feelings about the discourse surrounding last week’s race, saying that it was important to showcase it from a driver’s point of view.
“To me, it wasn’t really a debate,” Larson said. I think trying to give a perspective from the driver’s point of view, [as a driver] who’s been around now for over 10 years and seeing different packages and different results on the racetrack.
“Not every race is going to be super exciting. I think that was more where I was coming from. It’s just, you know, stop being so negative.”
Chase Elliott finished runner-up at Bristol behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, and he echoed similar thoughts about the experience of the race from the driver’s seat.
“I thought it was fun,” Elliott said. “From my perspective, it wasn’t any different than the last however many Bristol races I’ve run except the spring; that was the one that was different.
“Outside of that, I thought it was just like the other [races] that we’ve had there the past nine seasons for me.”
Perhaps the strongest supporter of last weekend’s race was Christopher Bell, who was genuinely amazed to see all the negative discourse surrounding the event.
“I was laughing because literally from my seat in the racecar, I felt like it was an amazing race,” Bell said. “I had no idea that everyone hated it until like a couple of hours after that [post-race] interview.
“I go back to the start of stage three, I literally watched guys run around there three-wide, and I was mind blown whenever people said it was a terrible race because — from my seat — I thought it was a great race.
“It just goes back to what the definition of a good race is and how the racecar drivers and fans are never going to agree on what a good race is. The drivers are always going to push for something different that is good from our seats, and then the fans are going to push for something that’s not good from our seat.”
In the end, there’s no universal consensus on what constitutes a perfect race. But with short tracks reeling in the past three Cup seasons with no end in sight, what the fans like in a race will have to take priority over what the drivers like in a race.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.