NASCAR announced Tuesday that the only penalty from Bristol was a $10,000 fine to Brian Pattie, crew chief for Ricky Stenhouse Jr., for having an unsecured lug nut on the No. 17 car after Monday’s Cup race.
Getty Images
Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace involved in multicar wreck on Lap 2 at Bristol
BRISTOL, Tenn. – A 15-car wreck occurred on Lap 2 of Saturday night’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway, eliminating Bubba Wallace, AJ Allmendinger, Michael McDowell and Gray Gaulding.
The wreck also involved Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, Jesse Little, Martin Truex Jr., Ty Dillon, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Daniel Suarez, and JJ Yeley. Martin Truex Jr. narrowly avoided clipping Busch’s car.
The wreck started when Busch spun in Turn 4 and stopped just past the entrance to the frontstretch.
McDowell then plowed into the back of Busch’s car, and Little rammed the left side. Busch was able to continue two laps down after making repairs.
“It just felt like an ARCA wreck,” Wallace said. “I hit the No. 47 (AJ Allmendinger) before my spotter called it I had run into the back of the No. 47, but then I got checked-up enough to pull down out line and just kept getting shoved into cars. It’s unfortunate. I was super excited to run tonight and see how we stacked up, but fate had other plans.”
Check back for more.
Songs from driver introductions for the Bristol Night Race
Getty Images
It’s that time again.
With NASCAR’s summer return to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, that means another round of driver introductions with a special soundtrack.
Below are the songs drivers were introduced to before tonight’s Cup race.
Some of these songs are being reused from April when the songs were voted on by fans.
1. Kyle Larson “Dirt Road Anthem” by Jason Aldean
2. Chase Elliott “A Crazy Racin’ Man” by Bill Elliott
3. Kyle Busch “All I Do is WIN” by DJ Khaled
4. Paul Menard “R.O.C.K. in the USA” by John Mellencamp
5. William Byron “Fan the Flames” by Liberty University
6. Kevin Harvick “Happy” by Pharrell
7. Denny Hamlin “Forever” by Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne & Eminem
8. Aric Almirola “Miami Vice”
9. Kurt Busch “Outlaw State of Mind” by Chris Stapleton
10. Ryan Blaney “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash
11. Brad Keselowski “Little Deuce Coupe” by The Beach Boys
12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. “People Back Home” by Florida Georgia Line
13. Jimmie Johnson “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes
14. Erik Jones “You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet” by Bachman Turner Overdrive
15. David Ragan “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band
16. Clint Bowyer “Country Boy Can Survive” by Hank Williams Jr.
17. Martin Truex Jr. “Reason to Drink” by Cole Swindell
18. Austin Dillon “Cowboy” by Kid Rock
19. Joey Logano “Brass Monkey” by The Beastie Boys
20. Jamie McMurray “One” by Metallica
21. Daniel Suarez “Speedy Gonzales” by Pat Boone
22. Alex Bowman “Rise” by I Prevail
23. Trevor Bayne “Rocky Top” by the Pride of the Southland Marching Band
24. Ryan Newman “Huntin, Fishin & Lovin Every Day” by Luke Bryan
25. AJ Allmendinger “I’m Alright” by Kenny Logins
26. Kasey Kahne “5-1-5-0” by Dierks Bentley
27. Bubba Wallace “Into The Fire” by Asking Alexandria
28. Chris Buescher “Pork and Beans” by Weezer
29. Matt DiBenedetto “Rocky Theme Song”
30. Corey LaJoie “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
31. Michael McDowell “Taking it to the Streets”, by The Doobie Brothers
32. Ty Dillon “Walk it Like I Talk It” by Migos
33. Jesse Little “John Deere Green” by Joe Diffie
34. JJ Yeley “Warrior” by Imagine Dragons
35. Ross Chastain “Watermelon Crawl” by Tracy Byrd
36. Reed Sorenson “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix
37. Timmy Hill “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osborne
38. Gray Gaulding “Makes Me Wonder” by Maroon 5
39. Landon Cassill “Going to Mars” by Judah and the Lion
40. Blake Jones “Copperhead Road” by Steve Earle
Austin Dillon’s car fails pre-race inspection, will start from rear
Getty Images
Bristol, Tenn. — Austin Dillon‘s No. 3 Chevrolet failed pre-race inspection three times Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Dillon will start from the rear and his car chief, Greg Ebert, has been ejected from the event.
Dillon had qualified 18th.
Dillon will have to serve a 30-minute practice hold in two weeks at Darlington Raceway.
Kyle Larson seeks turnaround at ‘by far my favorite racetrack’
Sean Gardner/Getty Images
BRISTOL, Tenn. – With his team in a mini-slump in midsummer, Kyle Larson is back in his happy place, and the Chip Ganassi Racing driver wouldn’t mind returning more often.
“I love racing here,” Larson said Thursday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “I wish we could race here weekly. I think our sport would be in a good spot if we could.
“I didn’t watch a ton of NASCAR growing up, but I’d never miss a Bristol race. If you were to ask me what Bristol race stands out, I couldn’t tell you. I just loved watching Bristol. It was always a lot of fun. Ever since they added the progressive banking, it’s been a lot better, too, as far as style of racing goes. It’s by far my favorite NASCAR track.”
The love of Bristol grew only stronger Friday night as he won the Food City 300 and scored his first victory in 18 Cup and Xfinity starts at the 0.533-mile oval.
Larson will be trying for his first win in NASCAR’s premier series at the track – and his first in Cup this season – while starting from the pole position in tonight’s race.
A victory would be a welcome result for Larson’s team, which is virtually locked into the playoffs but has only two top 10s in six races since his memorable runner-up finish to Kyle Busch at Chicagoland Speedway.
While Chevrolet teams Hendrick Motorsports and Richard Childress Racing seem to have gotten faster in recent weeks, Larson’s No. 42 Camaro seems to have tailed off slightly after easily being the best Chevy in the first half of the season.
“I don’t know where we might be off,” he said. “Nobody really honestly knows where other teams have gotten speed from, so we’re working on all areas, really, I’m pretty sure, to try and get faster. We have moments where we’re really fast, but I would say we’re just a little inconsistent from track to track.
“You look at last year, we were good everywhere. This year, we’re good at our good tracks. Not as good at the tracks that we have struggled at years prior.”
But what about starting and finishing 17th last Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, where he won three consecutive races from 2016-17?
A loose wheel after his first pit stop mired Larson in traffic and out of sequence, and then contact on a restart hampered into using an older set of tires for the last run of the race.
“It just snowballed into a bad run where I felt like we were going to have a shot to run top 3 or 5, but it just doesn’t show for it, and other people look at it as we just ran bad all day,” he said. “If you look at lap times, we were running some of the fastest laps of the race, just buried in traffic. I feel like we’re not that bad. We just had a little bit of a bad luck that cost us finishes we deserved the last few weeks.”
The urgency to maximize his speed stems more from being well positioned in the playoffs than making the 16-driver field. Larson is one of three provisionally qualified who have no playoff points yet.
“That part is a little frustrating,” he said. “It makes you more nervous when it comes to the playoffs, but the good thing is there’s been three guys taking up all the playoff points, so the other ones don’t have a whole lot, either, but every point matters.
“You look at it as you need to win some stages and win a race, but I also view Bristol as being my best opportunity to get some playoff points. I feel like we can win both stages and win the race. Not easily but this is our best shot. That five to seven points would be huge.”
And after getting bumped from the lead by race winner Kyle Busch at Bristol in April, Larson has earned some leeway in playing rough – not that he plans to use it.
He prefers the “options” afforded by the 2007 addition of progressive banking (which was retrofitted in 2012 in a manner that often makes the top groove the fastest).
“If there was progressive banking 20 years ago, the racing would have been a lot better back then,” he said. “I’m not a fan of the bump and run. I’m just a fan of Bristol.
“I’d much rather see two to three wide racing at Bristol than single file. I think the racing is really good, and that’s why I love coming here to race.”
