With the first two races of the Round of 16 at Darlington Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway in the books, the NASCAR Cup Series is off to Thunder Valley for the prestigious Bristol Night Race. It’s 500 laps on the concrete high banks of Bristol Motor Speedway, and Saturday night (Sept. 13) is bound to be a show one way or another.
Twelve drivers will advance to the Round of 12, while the remaining four will be one-and-done in this year’s championship fight.
If recent history is any indication, there are two drivers to watch for on Saturday night: Kyle Larson and Denny Hamlin. The pair have utterly dominated everything at Bristol since 2023, combining to win every concrete race since. Other contenders like Ryan Blaney might have a chance to spoil the party, but Bristol has run through Larson and Hamlin; expect no different this weekend.
The one change for tomorrow night’s race comes in the form of a brand-new right-side tire that Goodyear has debuted in hopes of generating tire wear and increasing passing. However, Saturday’s (Sept. 12) practice session showed little, if any, tire wear. How the tire will impact the racing in race conditions remains to be seen.
There’s still time to submit your six drivers for this weekend’s race on DraftKings. But before we head to my picks for Bristol, let’s take a look at how Garrett Cook’s drivers fared at Gateway.
| Right on the Money | Lick Your Wounds |
| Joey Logano: 51.55 Points Scored | Austin Cindric: 14 Points Scored |
| Ryan Blaney: 45.85 Points Scored | Tyler Reddick: 18.45 Points Scored |
| Carson Hocevar: 40 Points Scored | Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: 37 Points Scored |
2025 DraftKings Rules of the Road
Drivers will be awarded points based on their finishing position, position differential, fastest laps and laps led. The driver who wins the race scores 45 fantasy points, while second place gets 42 points, third gets 41 points and so on, at least through the top 10. The 11th-place finisher scores 32 points, 21st gets 21 and 31st gets 10.
However, any spots drivers lose or gain on the track are added or subtracted from their score. If the driver leads a lap, they will earn 0.25 points for each lap led and 0.45 points for each fastest lap.
Fantasy Forecast
Kyle Larson ($11,500)
Larson needs no introduction at Bristol. He’s a three-time Cup winner on the 0.533-mile concrete oval, and his Bristol finishes in the Next Gen car are fifth, second, fifth, first and first.
The rest of the field enters Saturday night at an absolute loss in how to beat him. The 2021 Cup champ led a whopping 462 of the 500 laps in this race a year ago and followed it up by “only” leading 411 of the 500 circuits in the 2025 spring race. Neither win was ever in doubt. Once he got the lead, he said sayonara to the field.
‘Yung Money’ is entering the Night Race is a well-documented slump, with only 86 laps led in his last 15 Cup starts. But he’s fresh off a weekend where he led 52 laps at Gateway, one of his weaker tracks in the Next Gen car, though the finish didn’t show for it in the end.
He’ll be starting fifth at the Last Great Colosseum, and it feels inevitable that he’ll find his way to the lead at some point in the 500-lap showdown. Once that happens, watch out.
Denny Hamlin ($11,000)
This is a rare weekend where you’ll want to pick the top two drivers. The pair comes at a hefty cost, but they’re well worth it.
Hamlin and Larson have combined to win the last four Bristol races on concrete. Hamlin’s finishes in the Next Gen car at Bristol are ninth, first, first, fourth and second.
He’s the only driver that’s been able to give Larson a true run for his money at Bristol in this car – and with the two drivers starting side-by-side on row three, Saturday night is shaping up to be a classic “mano a mano” showdown between the two rivals.
The best part for Hamlin is that, unlike in last year’s Bristol Night Race, he has zero worries about points racing his way to the Round of 12. With an opening round win at Gateway already secured, he’ll be free to focus entirely on racing for another victory at one of his best tracks.
Chris Buescher ($7,700)
Buescher is the only driver besides Larson and Hamlin to win at Bristol in the Next Gen car. The Texan might’ve missed the playoffs for the second year in a row, but he still has the hot hand with back-to-back top 10s to open the 2025 playoffs.
RFK Racing has only gotten stronger as the season’s gone on, and Buescher is tied for the second-most top 10s (15) of all drivers this season.
Bristol has been one of the better tracks for both Buescher and RFK co-owner Brad Keselowski in the Next Gen car, as Buescher has an average finish of 10.2 in his five Bristol Next Gen starts.
He’s only led 18 laps at Bristol since his shocking upset win in 2022 and he probably won’t have anything for Hamlin, Larson or the other heavy hitters. But Buescher is a safe pick at a cheap price to bring home a solid finish this weekend.
Ryan Preece ($7,000)
In his first season with RFK, Preece has put together a career year, setting season-bests in top fives, top 10s and average finish. He might’ve missed the playoffs alongside his RFK teammates, but that puts Preece in a prime position to play spoiler for a solid finish.
As a former Whelen Modified Tour champion that grew up on short tracks, Preece has been right at home in a Cup car at Bristol. The 34-year-old hasn’t led a lap at the track in Cup competition, but he has nine consecutive top-20 finishes at the 0.533-mile oval in a streak dating back to 2019. He’s recorded a best finish of seventh, which came at last year’s Night Race while Stewart-Haas Racing was in the midst of a freefall collapse.
His RFK teammates Buescher and Keselowski have found great success at Bristol with the Next Gen car. With Preece in the midst of a breakout year, he looks poised for another breakout race in Thunder Valley.
Josh Berry ($6,800)
Berry has had the definition of feast or famine season in 2025. He pulled off a surprise win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March and dazzled by showing several instances of race-winning speed in the first half of the season, but the No. 21 team struggled with execution and ended the regular season with just five top 10s in 26 races.
The Wood Brothers Racing newcomer’s first playoff appearance has been nothing short of a catastrophe, as he recorded back-to-back last place finishes in the first two races at Darlington Raceway and Gateway.
Nothing is going the No. 21 team’s way, but that what makes the team all the more dangerous this weekend. They have nothing to lose.
Berry will put his full focus on winning the race, and he’s impressed at Bristol in limited starts with a pair of 12th-place finishes in the 2024 and 2025 spring races. Those races featured absurd tire wear and no tire wear, respectively, showing that the former grassroots short track standout is versatile enough to succeed despite whatever curveballs the track throws at the teams this weekend. And with their backs against the wall, Berry and the No. 21 team will be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the car in an attempt to win the race.
Justin Haley ($5,700)
On the surface, Haley’s results at Bristol in the Next Gen car are nothing to write home about with zero top 10s and an average finish of 19.8 in five races. But it’s what he did at Bristol this spring that caught everyone’s attention.
Starting 10th, Haley showed himself to be one of the best cars in the first half of the race, running as high as third in the event’s midway point. He faded to 13th by the finish, but the Hoosier scored 13 stage points and finished the race with an average running position of seventh in what was easily one of his most impressive runs of the year.
Of course, a lot has changed since that race. Rodney Childers is no longer on top of the pit box for the No. 7 team. Haley has only recorded six top-20 finishes in the 19 races since that Bristol breakthrough. But Spire Motorsports teammate Carson Hocevar was one of the best cars at Bristol in the spring, which shows that the team has clearly figured something out around the high banks of Thunder Valley.
Is taking Haley a risk? Yes. But so is anyone else at this level. Considering how good he and Spire were at this track in the spring, taking him – at just $5,700 – is a no-brainer.
Prop Bets & Locks
Denny Hamlin Outright Winner (+450): Larson is at (+210) for outright winner, but with four combined Bristol wins in the last four races, either one would be a solid bet. Larson is the safer pick with two dominant victories in the last two races, while Hamlin offers more risk for a far greater reward. Choose wisely.
Ty Gibbs Top Five (+210): Gibbs has had a frustrating 2025 season, but Bristol has consistently been one of his best tracks. He led 102 laps and scored a fifth-place finish in 2023 and paced 137 laps in the spring 2024 event until a flat tire during the final green flag run relegated him to ninth. The grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs followed that up with a third-place finish in this year’s spring race behind Larson and Hamlin. Joe Gibbs Racing has always been strong in Thunder Valley and there’s little reason to expect that to change for the No. 54 car on Saturday night.
Justin Haley Top 10 (+1000): Look, it’s risky. But if Haley and Spire nail the Bristol set up like they did in April, a Haley top-10 finish bet has the potential to net a massive reward. At +1000 for a top-10 prop, it is well worth the gamble. He’ll be starting 17th, so the top 10 is certainly within reach for him and the No. 7 team.
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.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf