Commentary

Bearden Breakdown: Beautiful Bristol Bedlam

April 16, 2018
Jerry Jordan
Share Kickin' the Tires

By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ first trip to Bristol Motor Speedway was a torrid, chaotic affair that took more than 24 hours to complete due to a mixture of rain, sleet and snow in the Tennessee mountains.

It was also the most entertaining race of the 2018 season to date.

Many were left disappointed when Sunday’s initial attempted running of the Food City 500 ended with a postponement on the 205th lap. The field was just 45 laps from reaching Lap 250 of 500 – the circuit that marked the end of Stage 2 and would have made a race official – and at the time a bleak forecast for Monday meant there was a chance the tour might not even complete the event during the second day of racing.

In fact, they nearly didn’t. The day’s worrisome weather saw a wintry mix fall over the .533-mile oval just as drivers were being called to their machines. That same inclement weather would force another caution flag on Lap 391, threatening to end the race short of the scheduled distance just one day after an initial burst of rain had forced three red flags and a postponement.

But in the end the field completed all 500 scheduled laps, and the same rain that threatened to ruin the weekend contributed to arguably the best race of the young 2018 season.

The two-day Cup affair had a little bit of everything at The Last Great Colosseum. The track saw swings with each passing storm and day. The outside lane worked at times over the race, but the inside ultimately proved to be the preferred line in the event’s final stages.

Multiple drivers contended for the win. The lead changed 18 times between seven drivers before Kyle Busch ultimately secured a close victory over Kyle Larson with a late bump-and-run.

Ryan Blaney and Team Penske dominated Sunday’s first section of the race, with Brad Keselowski winning both stages and Blaney leading until he was caught up in an accident outside of his control as lapped traffic crashed ahead of him on Lap 118.

Later on the tide appeared to turn. Busch and Larson led the the way for the majority of Monday’s stint, using the bottom lane – which was given a fresh coat of the PJ1 compound for grip – to maneuver their machines through traffic with relative ease as they battled amongst each other.

While they didn’t all reach the lead, the race also saw a fresh assortment of characters up front.

Jimmie Johnson made his first appearance inside of the top five this season, scoring a third-place finish. Darrell Wallace Jr. placed the iconic No. 43 at the front of the field for a short stint before losing the lead to Busch. Daniel Suarez, Alex Bowman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Aric Almirola all spent time near the front of the field before earning solid finishes.

For those that like to see it, Bristol also supplied the lion’s share of crashes. The 500-lap battle saw eight cautions for wrecks  – a mark which would tie the highest number of yellow flags seen in any other race this season by itself.

Chase Elliott was taken out of contention after just three laps. Jamie McMurray, Erik Jones and Joey Logano were all involved in early accidents, and even leader Larson fell victim to a crash when he appeared to cut his No. 42 Chevrolet across the nose of Ryan Newman’s No. 31, yielding a spin that luckily didn’t result in significant damage.

From the wave of the initial green flag to the merciful display of the checkered, Bristol was filled the sort of chaos and unpredictability that makes for intense, unforgiving racing. With the possibility of rain ending the proceedings at any moment, teams tested a variety of strategies, and drivers tested each other’s talent and patience with each daring move.

During stints the race played out like the Bristol of old, with the inside lane proving to be dominant and contact often necessary to advance. Even the race’s ending played out like a mid-1990s trip to Thunder Valley, with Busch methodically reeling Larson in through traffic before scooting ahead of him with a classic bump in the final laps.

The race wasn’t perfect. In fact, most at the track would probably say it was an ugly affair.

But that was part of what made the event so special. Racing is often at its most beautiful when events become wild and unpredictable.

The Tale of Two Kyles

Like many other races in recent years, the race for the win at Bristol came down to a battle of Kyles – Busch and Larson.

Once again, Busch won.

The 2015 Cup champion benefitted from a timely caution on Lap 471 when longtime rival Brad Keselowski suffered issues and slammed the wall. Prior to the incident Busch had all-but fallen out of contention, nursing an ailing tire after a long green-flag run.

“We weren’t quite as good as the (No.) 42 (Larson) on that long run before that last caution came out,” Busch said. “I actually thought I had a tire going down, but we were able to get some tires on it and go give it everything we had.”

727409d0e2cffc8de60fb81de3e42983 1
The Kyles – Busch and Larson – led the way at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo: NKP)

The extra round of pit stops gave Busch new life. He marched through the field in the final 22-lap sprint to the finish to find himself just behind Larson in the closing stages.

Placed in a similar position to many drivers in Bristol’s storied history, Busch completed a move synonymous with short track success – the bump-and-run.

The Nevadan gave Larson a nudge on Lap 195, sending the Chip Ganassi Racing star up the track and surging to a lead he wouldn’t relinquish.

For the second time in as many weeks, and the second-consecutive time at Bristol, Busch found himself in victory lane.

He was quick to offer praise to Larson in the aftermath of their battle.

“I was breathing hard there those last 20 laps, whatever it was,” Busch said. “That was a heck of a run right there with the 42 (Kyle Larson) – chasing him down, being able to get to him, being able to get by him and then trying to hold him off with some lap traffic ahead of us.”

After leading a race-high 200 laps, Larson was left to come to terms with another close call that slipped away.

“It was really, really good there, and was just hoping it would go green until the end, and then we pitted, and I was actually fine with that, too, because I knew we’d leave as the leader and restart on the outside,” he said. “I just didn’t expect to get that loose that run there.  The 17 almost got by me, was able to hold him off.  I thought the grip was getting better, which it did a little bit, but not nearly good enough.

“Not sure if the track changed a lot there or what, but I lost the balance on the car.”

The run continued a trend between the two drivers.

Both Larson and Busch have excelled in recent years, combining to win 16 races since the start of the 2016 season. But while Larson has successfully played the role of a prodigy poised for championship success, Busch has consistently proven to be the benchmark that he can’t quite reach.

Larson has entered the playoffs each of the past two seasons as a favorite to make the Championship 4, but instead Busch has been the one that’s made the final quartet in each season.

The 25-year-old Larson entered 2018 with championship ambitions as well, but it’s been Busch that’s stolen the show for the past two months, claiming two wins and six top-three results with a 1.83 average finish in his past six starts. Larson has yet to see victory lane in 2018, with his fourth runner-up finish Busch in Bristol serving as his best result of the year.

Larson continues to draw closer to reaching the peak of NASCAR’s premier series, but Monday’s dramatic finish showed that he still has another step to take if he wants to reach the top of the mountain.

Quick Shots

The Paolo-produced pit guns received another round of damning criticism from a pair of NASCAR’s top stars at Bristol.

Denny Hamlin was forced to pit from the lead when he had a tire problem that appeared to stem from the pit guns. After the race Hamlin pulled no punches in his criticism of the guns, telling NBC Sports, “In absolutely no other professional sport does the league give you faulty equipment to play with and that’s what we have here.’’

Hamlin wasn’t the only one to face issues. Kurt Busch voiced his frustrations with the guns in a tweet shortly after the race’s conclusion.

There’s still hope for the pit gun issue to remedy itself over the coming months. But for now it appears to be a negative story that won’t go away anytime soon.

Darrell Wallace Jr. and Ryan Blaney both ended up with disappointing results at race’s end, but beforehand the pair of friends each delivered a stint that provided cause for optimism for their fans.

Blaney was the star of the show early on, pacing 100 of the first 117 laps and looking like an early favorite to claim his second Cup victory. But the third-generation driver’s race was undone when he was caught up in a crash involving lapped traffic ahead of him.

“It’s obviously frustrating when lapped cars wreck and take the leader out,” he said afterward. “That’s unfortunate.  They weren’t lap down cars yet, I guess, but I don’t know.  I didn’t really see much.”

While Blaney was eliminated on Sunday, his good friend Wallace found himself in position to contend in Monday’s rain-delayed run to the finish.

Piloting the iconic No. 43 for Richard Petty Motorsports, Wallace methodically rose through the field over the course of the event. The rookie’s rise culminated in a brief run at the lead from Lap 375 through 380 – Wallace’s first laps led in Cup competition.

The stint showed promise for Wallace, who had struggled since his second-place surprise in the Daytona 500. But afterward the Alabamian faded to 16th, a run he said left him “devastated” in a refreshingly emotional recap video.

A host of surprises filled the top half of the field at the end of the Food City 500.

  • Jimmie Johnson’s third-place run marked his first top five since last October’s trip to Dover International Speedway.
  • Alex Bowman tallied his first-career top five finish, earning a fifth-place result in his 89th Cup start.
  • Aric Almirola (sixth) earned the best result of his short tenure with Stewart-Haas Racing, and his best finish on a non-restrictor plate race since Dover in October 2015.
  • David Ragan’s 12th-place result was his best on a non-plate track since the first of two trips to Martinsville Speedway in March 2015.
  • Landon Cassill delivered StarCom Racing their best finish to date with a 20th-place run in the No. 00 Chevrolet.
  • Daniel Suarez’s 11th-place run wasn’t necessarily a surprise, but it was impressive given that his injured hand was a color that would have matched Ryan Newman’s Bass Pro Shops paint scheme.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *