Who… should you be talking about after the race?
After seeing tire wear rule the day in Saturday’s (April 12) practice and qualifying sessions, teams tiptoed into Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. They tackled the opening laps tentatively, knowing they had to make the tires last beyond the 30 or 40 laps they seemed capable of.
But by the time that 40 laps was up, drivers weren’t having the issues they’d feared. And on that lap, Kyle Larson threw caution to the wind and took the lead from polesitter and teammate Alex Bowman. Save a round of green-flag pit stops in the final stage, Larson would not relinquish the lead until the checkered flag flew as he scored a bittersweet victory. The win comes on the heels of the death of longtime Hendrick Motorsports employee Jon Edwards, who had worked closely with Larson in recent years.
For Jon💙 pic.twitter.com/QDiBwjgIWG
— Kyle Larson (@KyleLarsonRacin) April 13, 2025
After finishing second to Chandler Smith in the Craftsman Truck Series race Friday night (April 11) and winning the Xfinity Series event by more then two seconds, Larson led twice for a total of 411 laps on Sunday, besting runner-up Denny Hamlin by two and a quarter seconds to take his second sword trophy of the weekend, bouncing back from a two-crash, 37th-place run last week at Darlington Raceway.
It’s Larson’s third win at Bristol and second in a row. Only three other drivers sniffed the lead: polesitter Bowman, Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar, who each led during a green-flag pit cycle.
Kyle Larson leads 411 laps and wins at Bristol, the first time a driver has led 400+ laps in back to back Bristol races since Bobby Allison in 1972. pic.twitter.com/4nhwVZJLC7
— NASCAR Insights (@NASCARInsights) April 13, 2025
Hamlin finished second and fifth in the opening stages, but he couldn’t get close enough to make a move on Larson. Ty Gibbs finished third, his first signs of life in what has been a miserable start to 2025. Chase Briscoe and Blaney rounded out the top five.
The win is the 31st of Larson’s Cup Series career and his second in 2025.
On the other hand…
After leading the first 39 laps and finishing fourth and second respectively in the stages one and two, Bowman’s day went from bad to worse after an engine failure sent his day up in smoke. After a strong start to the season, the last three races have been one thing after another for Bowman, with finishes of 27th, 35th and 37th. Sunday marked Bowman’s first DNF of the year.
An early exit for pole sitter Alex Bowman after an engine issue at Bristol. #NASCARonFS1 pic.twitter.com/wirO9QfXEG
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 13, 2025
A promising start for Ty Dillon also went south on Sunday. Dillon started 12th and raced his way into the top 10 early, but an unspecified late issue cost him a strong finish. Dillon wound up 32nd.
What… does this mean for the points standings?
Hamlin did everything he could to take a bite out of William Byron’s point lead, and Byron didn’t help his cause early on, qualifying 26th and missing out on stage points twice. However, Byron was there at the end, finishing sixth.
Byron entered the day with a 46-point gap over second place, and Hamlin did whittle that down to 30 heading into the Easter break.
There were no changes in the top three this week, with Byron, Hamlin and Christopher Bell entering and leaving Bristol in those spots. Larson displaces teammate Chase Elliott from fourth, and Elliott held onto the fifth spot.
After a much needed top-five run, Blaney sits just three points behind Elliott in sixth. Tyler Reddick is hot on Blaney’s heels, only one point back in seventh, with his 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace remaining in eighth place this week. Joey Logano and Bowman also hold in ninth and 10th, despite finishing 24th and 37th, respectively, on Sunday.
The biggest gain of the week was much deeper in the pack, where both Gibbs and Justin Haley gained six positions, moving into 20th and 23rd, respectively.
The biggest loss at Bristol goes to Todd Gilliland, who dropped five spots from 23rd to 28th
Where… did he come from?
After struggling in practice and qualifying, the front of the field looked awfully far away for Ross Chastain. Starting 35th, Chastain was in a position where if he didn’t move forward immediately, he’d be in position to lose laps to the leaders fairly quickly.
Chastain picked his way through the field methodically. He didn’t score any stage points, but he did outrun Larson, something that most of the field was unable to do, especially with so few caution flags to bunch the field up for restarts.
Top-10 for our @BuschBeer flannel @TeamChevy today! Looking forward to heading home to the farm this week to harvest some watermelons! pic.twitter.com/BtGZF0zTs1
— Ross Chastain (@RossChastain) April 14, 2025
On a day where his Trackhouse Racing teammates Daniel Suarez and Shane van Gisbergen finished 33rd and 38th respectively, Chastain highlighted what a driver can do with minimal opportunity to make adjustments.
Chastain’s critics point to his aggressive driving style, and while it’s true that he does toe the line most weeks, this time, that’s exactly what he had to do to make his own luck. Chastain finished on the lead lap in seventh.
When… was the moment of truth?
This was supposed to be where Goodyear got some praise for tires that fell well short of a fuel run, forcing teams to make decisions on how to race and when to make stops under green.
Except that didn’t happen. The tires wore out just fine in colder temperatures, but Sunday’s 60 degree weather was enough for the tires to hold up through an entire fuel run … and that made racing which should have been filled with tough strategy calls and some teams stretching things too far, making way for the unexpected to never happen.
It’s no secret by now that the Next Gen car was designed for the intermediate tracks and falls far short on the short tracks. Last year’s spring race at Bristol gave a glimmer of hope in the form of tire wear, but that didn’t show up for the night race…or for this year’s spring event.
So, while the idea was there, the execution was not. If the cars have great mechanical grip for an entire fuel run, then aerodynamic grip becomes the name of the game. That means clean air rules, and track position is dependent on the speed of pit stops and maybe the occasional pass, while strategy is pretty much secondary, taking the race out of the drivers’ hands and even mostly out of the teams’ control. That’s not good for anyone, but especially the fans watching the race.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
The Cup Series has its only week off for 2025 this weekend, so all eyes will be on the Xfinity and Truck Series as they return to Rockingham Speedway. It’s a second revival of the one-mile oval in North Carolina’s sandhills, and realistically, it’s probably the track’s last chance to show that it can host any of NASCAR’s top divisions.
After shuttering following the 2004 season, Rockingham has played host to a handful of ARCA Menards Series races and some local racing, test sessions, and a pair of Truck Series races in 2012 and 2013 — but poor attendance ended NASCAR’s involvement until this year.
It’s a test NASCAR won’t allow to fail twice. If the stands aren’t full this time around, it will likely be the last time that NASCAR attempts to make it work. That makes not just the 2025 version critical, but if the track does well enough to earn more years, fans have to show up for every one of them.
Realistically speaking for this to happen especially for an independent track will take multiple years or heavy support from the fans.
— Speedway Digest (@speedwaydigest) April 13, 2025
It took Gateway years of investment to make it happen. I see the same for Rockingham. https://t.co/1TLK1QJH2T
How… did this race stack up?
When 2025 is over and fans are talking about how it went, this race is probably going to be left out of the conversation.
A dominant performance isn’t exactly exciting for anyone but that driver’s fans. Larson’s trouncing of the field isn’t exactly a contender for the best finish of the year. Despite the broadcast booth talking up Hamlin’s chances in the final laps, it was all Larson, all the time.
But it’s unlikely to be on the list of worst finishes either, because no matter what it was, what it wasn’t was manipulated. There was no late caution for debris or because a car almost brushed the wall or dropped a spring rubber on the apron.
It wasn’t exciting, but it did play out without interference.
Not every race is a barnburner. That’s true of every era, at every track. Does NASCAR need to find a way to improve the competition on short tracks? They certainly do.
But that way is not through unnecessary cautions and forced overtimes. NASCAR handled this one right, even though that means it’ll be forgotten by summer.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.