Bristol Motor Speedway in recent years has become one of the more frustrating tracks on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar. In the past, you were pretty much guaranteed some action. These days, the spring race at Bristol is more likely to bring you issues pertaining to weather, either due to precipitation or the effect of certain temperatures.
This past weekend was no exception. Saturday (April 12) saw temperatures in the 40s during practice and qualifying. In that scenario, the track didn’t take any rubber, creating a situation that was as bad or worse than last year’s Food City 500. Everyone was worried. It turns out that it was all unfounded.
Prior to the race, the tires were one of the main topics of discussion. Shots of the sweepers wiping away strings of rubber from the concrete surface and tires grated down to the cords were common.
The track made adjustments to the traction compound, spraying additional fluid down Sunday morning. The general thought was that this could have made it easier to put down rubber and more likely that there would be multiple grooves. I guess we got that eventually, but it didn’t make the on-track product any better. Clint Bowyer stated that the weather forecast was different on Sunday and perhaps that could change things.
I’m not surprised. This is the same issue that Martinsville Speedway had for years. It was always too cold for the track to take rubber in the turns there due to NASCAR scheduling both races at cool times of the year, an issue that dated back to the COT years. The difference compared to Bristol is that the speeds are low enough at Martinsville that it didn’t affect the racing much. Eventually, softer tires and schedule adjustments fixed the issue.
Last week was also pretty painful in the time as three different people in the sport passed within only a few days. Hattori Racing Enterprises owner Shigeaki Hattori died in a car accident on April 5. Autoweek’s Al Pearce died last week and then Hendrick Motorsports’ Jon Edwards died.
It didn’t take long for FOX Sports’ primary storyline to be a complete bust. By lap 40, the track was taking rubber and the notion of tire failures being a thing was gone.
Shortly after that happened, Larry McReynolds was reporting on track temperatures. At that point, the concrete was 100° in turns 1 and 2 and 88° in turns 3 and 4. This was just enough to lay rubber down and activate the PJ1 TrackBite. The thought that came to mind here was why FOX didn’t make note of the track temperatures prior to the race instead of lap 57? Even during the pace laps, the broadcast didn’t do so. The announcers mentioned the air temperature (59°), which was borderline to me regarding putting rubber down.
Basically, it seems like the preparation was just for the tire issues that they thought were coming. When they didn’t have that, they basically had nothing. There were no real attempts to show viewers what the tires actually looked like during the race. I saw shots of the tires from stage one on social media and they looked perfectly fine.
Once the groove moved up the track, much of the racing for position was gone. Some drivers made substantial inroads, like Ross Chastain, who finished seventh after starting 35th. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to write home about here.
When the tire storyline went away, Mike Joy pivoted to what they knew from last September. That race was actually even more dominant than Sunday’s race was as Kyle Larson led all but 38 laps en route to victory. Basically, based on their preparations, Joy knew that this race was not likely to be the most competitive race out there.
Despite Larson leading 51 fewer laps Sunday than in September, there was less passing overall Sunday than in the fall. NASCAR’s Loop Data bares this out as there were 100 fewer passes despite 16 more laps under green. As compared to last year, passing was down nearly 39%.
Having said that, FOX Sports could have done a better job in showing viewers the on-track action. To its credit, FOX Sports 1 showed some action from time to time, but not as much as it could have.
In this situation, we should’ve had more reports on teams throughout the field. Do something to give viewers more to look at if the actual on-track product is lacking. As a result, there just wasn’t much to write home about.
I’ll give an example. When Cup races aired on TNN in the late 1990s, there would be long green flag runs at places like Dover Motor Speedway. What they did in this situation, such as the 1997 Miller 500, is drop back through the field and try to report something about everyone.
Doing something like this, you knock off two birds with one stone. One, you expand your coverage to more than just a select few teams, which is something that I have griped about constantly this season. You can cover up a lack of overall action by doing so as well. If you come across a nice battle in the process, why not cover that?
This race was the third-fastest Cup race ever run at Bristol (only last fall’s night race was quicker). As a result, it ended 38 minutes before the end of the timeslot, leaving plenty of time for post-race coverage
Viewers got interviews with the top seven finishers (including two with Larson) and winning crew chief Cliff Daniels. There was also some post-race analysis, along with multiple attempts to get fans to switch to the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on FOX. While the cross-promotion was a little silly, this was a decent amount of post-race coverage given the time.
Overall, this was a frustrating race to watch. You knew before it started that FS1 was all in on the tires. When that didn’t pan out, the whole broadcast was the equivalent of a broken play in football.
There are a couple of directions that you can go from there, but you’re effectively forced to change on the fly. Alternate plans are a must for a situation like this and FOX Sports just didn’t have the planning to make this race enjoyable to watch. You just didn’t see much action. I didn’t enjoy myself. Then again, it seems like the fans in attendance didn’t enjoy themselves much either as quite a few of them left early.
That’s all for this week. With Easter coming up, the NASCAR Cup Series will take its lone in-season off-weekend. That said, this weekend will not be completely devoid of racing. The NASCAR Xfinity Series will headline the return to Rockingham Speedway with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series East on the undercard. Note that it is a Friday-Saturday weekend. Formula 1 will return to Jeddah, while the FIA World Endurance Championship will be at Imola. TV listings can be found here.
For next week, we’re going to take a look at the Xfinity Series’ first race at Rockingham since 2004. If testing is anything to look at, it won’t look like anything we’ve ever seen there. The Critic’s Annex will cover the SciAps 300.
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Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.