With eight races remaining on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar, a horde of 36 hungry competitors descend upon the Appalachian Mountains and into Thunder Valley for the Bristol Night Race.
Electrifying racing awaits us this evening at the Worlds’ Fastest Half-Mile with Bristol serving as the cutoff race for the Round of 16, meaning four drivers will be left out of the championship chase after tonight.
Before breaking down what kind of race we might see, let’s talk about the one we saw last weekend.
Last Week at Watkins Glen…
Action broke out shortly after the drop of the green flag as Corey Lajoie skipped a curb in the Bus Stop and clipped Kyle Busch to his outside, setting off a 10-car pileup that collected Playoff drivers, Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, and Denny Hamlin.
Blaney and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were unable to continue and finished at the bottom of the running order while the race continued after the cleanup with pole sitter Ross Chastain taking the point.
Stage 1 saw Martin Truex Jr. stay out with a few other Playoff drivers and rack up stage points with many in that group looking to do the same at the end of stage 2.
Unfortunately for them, Daniel Suárez’s #99 Freeway Insurance Camaro blew a tire going into turn 6 and spun his way into the gravel trap while teammate Ross Chastain looked to dive onto pit road with future Trackhouse teammate Shane van Gisbergen firmly in the #1 car’s tire tracks.
This ended the second stage prematurely and set up a strategically-led final stage.
In a move that confounded some, Chastain and SVG stayed out on older tires for the start of stage 3 because track position came at a premium. The tire compound Goodyear brought to the track was intended to “fall off” or wear at an increased rate.
To make matters all the more confusing, they chose to stay out again after a lap 47 caution for Kyle Larson, Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin making contact in the Esses with Hamlin’s FedEx Toyota sliding into the outside wall. They were racing for 28th place.
Goodyear’s plans didn’t exactly play out as intended as the watermelon farmer and the kiwi jetted out on the next restart to an over two-second lead over third-place driver Michael McDowell on fresher tires.
After 40 laps on their set of tires, the two Chevys tiptoed their way around Watkins Glen’s winding layout, bringing McDowell and Chris Buescher into contention.
The future teammates put fresh rubber on their Chevys first before Buescher swung his Ford in for service the following lap, putting him in the lead of the cars that stopped with just 30 laps to go.
Some drivers were trying to make it to the end without stopping again, opting to conserve fuel and hoping for a caution-free finish. Austin Dillon nearly spoiled those plans early when he ran over Christopher Bell in turn 7 for seemingly no reason on lap 61.
However, it wasn’t until Harrison Burton lost a tire on the entry to the Bus Stop with 10 laps to go that the complexion of the race would completely change.
By this time, Buescher made his way up to the lead while rookie Carson Hocevar joined the Bowtie Bunch up at the front for the final seven circuits.
Before an entire lap could be logged on the next restart, a crash broke out in turn 4 as Keselowski tried to clear former teammate Joey Logano that sent the #6 Kings Hawaiian Ford into the outside wall and collected one of last year’s Championship Four contenders, William Byron.
The following restart made it even less far as Larson shut the door on Todd Gilliand that triggered another multi-car melee that took out Martin Truex Jr., Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott, and Kyle Busch with Truex offering some choice words for the 2021 champion in his post-race interview.
NASCAR Overtime was utilized for the 12th time this season, the most Overtimes ever used in a season since the Cup Series implemented the policy 20 years ago. Remember: there’s still eight more races.
On the final restart, SVG lined up behind Buescher on the bottom side and gave the #17 a light tap on the entry to turn 1, allowing the Australian Supercars legend to sneak by on the inside to take the lead.
Buescher gave chase to van Gisbergen’s #16 WeatherTech machine for the next lap-and-a-half, slowly closing in until SVG made a critical error when entering the Bus Stop.
The seasoned road racer scraped the inside wall with his right-rear quarter panel, throwing the balance of his car off and sending him off the racing line. This slightest amount of contact opened the door for Buescher to seize the point in the Carousel where the two made a fair amount of contact before the #17 surged ahead.
Buescher held a pretty wheel for the final two corners and came home victorious for the first time in 2024 while van Gisbergen slipped and skidded his way to a runner-up result.
The News
Heading into tonight’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, four drivers are on the outside looking in for the upcoming Round of 12; these drivers will need to find salvation in the Last Great Colloseum.
These aren’t just any random drivers, either.
Denny Hamlin’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Playoffs persisted in upstate NY last week, leaving the three-time Daytona 500 winner six points below teammate Ty Gibbs.
Behind Hamlin is Brad Keselowski. The 2012 Cup champ resides 12 points behind Gibbs for the final transfer spot, and just two points below him is 2017 champion Martin Truex Jr. in his final full-time season.
Harrison Burton brings up the rear of the Playoff grid just 20 points short of locking himself into the Round of 12 in what would be a shock to many in the media and the garage.
In terms of headlines from this week, no story hit the presses harder than a rare situation between Rick Ware Racing and Spire Motorsports.
The two teams announced a driver trade on Friday afternoon with RWR shipping Justin Haley over to Spire in exchange for Corey Lajoie.
At just 25 years old, Haley’s future appears rather bright as he’s developed a reputation for building teams and getting the most out of lesser equipment.
Linking up with the team that he earned his first Cup win with all the way back at Daytona in 2019 was an easy enough fit for Haley, but when Spire added championship crew chief Rodney Childers to their 2025 roster for the team’s flagship #7 Camaro, the young Hoosier jumped at the opportunity to rejoin his former team.
Rick Ware Racing president Robby Benton declined to comment on Lajoie’s future with the team beyond 2024, but the team looks forward to evaluating the veteran driver in the remaining seven races to see if Lajoie is a good fit for the future of their organization.
While Lajoie and Haley will race for their familiar numbers and teams this weekend at Bristol, the swap starts at the beginning of next week with Haley taking the Spire #7 and Lajoie hopping behind the wheel of the RWR #51 at the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Bristol Motor Speedway’s Layout & History
Bristol Motor Speedway has hosted the night race every year since 1978, long before most tracks in the sport were able to incorporate a lighting system.
NASCAR legend Darrell Waltrip scored seven victories in the Bristol Night Race, scoring those victories across four different race teams. Former teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch are knotted up at three victories apiece in the Night Race with Hamlin entering tonight as the defending winner.
Boasting an enormous 180,000 seating capacity, Bristol stands as the second-shortest track on the NASCAR calendar at .533 miles, only larger than Martinsville (.522 miles).
Contrary to Martinsville’s long straights and flat, tight turns, Bristol’s turns mirror the steepness of the mountains that surround the facility, with progressive banking in both turns that goes from 24° by the apron to 28° by the outside wall.
The varied banking in the turns offers a plethora of ways for drivers to approach each corner of this speedy short track.
Should a driver choose to run the bottom, it is the shortest way around the track, allowing a driver to take what should be the shortest way around the track.
The momentum carried by cars running the top keeps the cars at a higher speed for longer, though and tends to be easier on the tires as they age due to the driver having to turn the steering wheel as much, putting less stress on the tires.
Tire management could be a factor in tonight’s race like it was in the spring as Goodyear brings the same compound that made the spring race so dynamic. That said, practice didn’t produce similar results, and this race will be run at night in the summer, meaning the track will cool off and gain grip as the laps wind down.
Weather & Fast Facts
Though I hate to be a broken record, tonight’s race doesn’t look to feature rain, so hopefully, we can all take a deep breath in, exhale, and rejoice that the Bristol Night Race should go uninterrupted by Mother Nature.
A hot 85°F day should ease into a comfortable night that will see the temperature drop into the mid-to-high 60s by the time the checkered flag flies.
As for the standard Bristol race by the numbers, I’ve got you covered. On average, the Bristol Night Race sees 8 cautions for 66 caution laps, 17 lead changes, and 2,009 green-flag passes (or 4.6 passes per green-flag lap).
Over the past decade, the Bristol Night Race hasn’t endured a single instance of NASCAR Overtime with an average lap of final caution falling around 83 laps to go, which is lap 418.
Tonight’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race begins airing at 7pm Eastern time on USA Network where we’re due to see a 500-lap event broken up into three stages that end on the following laps: lap 125-250-500.
With the average race taking 2 hours and 56 minutes, try not to make any evening plans until after 10pm if you plan to watch the entire race.
The Odds
Leading the betting favorites is an all-too-familiar face: Kyle Larson (+300). The 2021 champion added a win at the Bristol Night Race to his title-winning campaign three seasons ago, and after two subpar performances to open up the Playoffs, the #5 team wants to earn Playoff points and a win to point them in the right direction.
The Californian owns an impressive record at Bristol, pacing the field there for 889 laps over 16 starts, but he’s light on victories, losing out to Hamlin in last year’s night race. Needing a good run to keep their Playoff hopes alive, look for Larson and company to be up front all evening if he can keep the tires on his Chevy.
Speaking of the #11 car, Denny Hamlin (+500) has often shared in Kyle Larson’s early-Playoff misery. The two drivers failed to earn top-10s in the first two races with Hamlin missing out on the top-20 in Atlanta and Watkins Glen.
Maybe it’s the charter drama or the pressure getting to Hamlin, it’s impossible to tell, but the #11 team needs to get their season back on track in a big way since they’re underneath the cutline. At a track where Hamlin took the last two pavement victories, look for the Virginia native to punch his ticket to the Round of 12 in style.
Rounding out the Playoff drivers here is Christopher Bell (+600). The Oklahoma native cut his teeth with Larson in the dirt racing scene, and Bristol fits his driving style like the snuggest of gloves.
In just six starts on the concrete version of Bristol, Bell took the lead for a surprising 360 circuits around the World’s Fastest Half-Mile, not including any of his performances at Bristol Dirt. Sitting on a massive points cushion, I expect Bell to have a powerful performance that will propel him through the rest of the Playoffs.
My two focus drivers for the non-Playoff drivers are Kyle Busch (+1800) and Carson Hocevar (+8000). Busch is the active wins leader at Bristol Motor Speedway and searching for his first win of 2024. There wouldn’t be a more iconic way for Kyle to get win #64 than taking the win at Bristol from desperate Playoff drivers.
Hocevar returns to Bristol for the third time on pavement hot off the heels of a career-best third-place finish at Watkins Glen. The Spire rookie wheeled an underperforming Legacy Motor Club car to 11th in last year’s race, and with a top-10 start tonight, keep your eyes on the 21-year-old hotshoe as day fades into night.
Writer’s Pick
Last week’s writer’s pick was Shane van Gisbergen, meaning I picked the second-place finisher again.
My pick this week is Kyle Larson.
Larson is due for another victory in an already-accomplished 2024 campaign that saw him fall just one spot short of the regular season title three weeks ago, and I believe that win comes tonight at Bristol.
He’s not likely to have his teammate Chase Elliott’s help like he did in 2021, but Larson and Cliff Daniels won’t need it because they’ll unload with speed and keep up with the race track.
All Kyle Larson needs to do is keep his head and wheel straight, and he will have a chance to get the fifth win of 2024, his second-biggest accomplishment of the season behind earning the Indy 500 Rookie of the Year.
(Top Photo Credit: Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)
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