By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service
BRISTOL, Tenn.— After the NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway last March, when extreme tire wear was a decisive factor, drivers and crew chiefs were at a loss to form expectations for the Night Race in September.
Chris Buescher participated in a Goodyear tire test between races, and the results of that session indicated tire fall-off would still be a major issue.
“We didn’t see what happened in the spring coming whatsoever, and we went to the fall expecting it, and it didn’t happen,” Buescher said. “We did the tire rest last year before the fall race, and it had all kinds of significant wear, and we were prepared for that when we came back, and it just did not happen.
“I don’t know what to make out of that. I don’t know what we’ll see this go-around. I really don’t. I hope we get back to the point where we have somewhere in-between the two, really. I’d love to be able to go 60 or 70 laps and wear out a set of tires, not 30 or 40 — and certainly not 250.”
Kyle Larson won last year’s Night Race after leading 462 of 500 laps in what was more of a traditional Bristol race on the high-banked concrete surface, with minimal tire wear.
That said, the expectations for this year’s spring race are anybody’s guess.
Even though Sunday’s Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is a month later on the schedule this year, the temperature will be similar to the conditions drivers experienced last March—chilly.
A major difference is that the 0.533-mile racing surface has been sprayed with PJ1 Trackbite in the bottom lane, as opposed to the resin used last year.
“The majority of time it’s been three or four feet of PJ1 on the bottom,” said Buescher, who won the Night Race in 2022. “We’ve had some instances where somebody missed the line a little bit, and we’ve had 10 feet of PJ1, and that was no good. We’ve ended up with resin, and I think we’re going back to PJ1 because we don’t think that was any good.
“We put dirt on it—that was a terrible idea,” quipped Buescher, whose best finish was 14th when the racing surface was topped with dirt for three consecutive races in the spring. “I’m just kidding. I just didn’t like the dirt. It was a great idea. I appreciate the action to it, but I like me some Bristol concrete.”
Kyle Larson has two more chances to win for PR representative Jon Edwards
Kyle Larson’s chances to sweep all three of this weekend’s NASCAR national series races at Bristol Motor Speedway disappeared with a second-place finish in Friday night’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race.
Nevertheless, the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series Chevrolet still has two chances to honor his PR representative, Jon Edwards, who passed away unexpectedly during the week before the Bristol races.
Larson is scheduled to compete in Saturday’s SciAps 300 Xfinity Series event and in Sunday’s Food City 500 NASCAR Cup race.
Edwards spent the majority of his career representing four-time series champion Jeff Gordon before working with Larson after Gordon retired from racing.
“He meant a lot to me and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports—Jeff Gordon especially,” Larson said after Friday night’s Weather Guard Truck Race. “It was terrible news, sudden… Just a sad week for NASCAR in general.
“I would have loved to have gotten a win (Friday night) for Jon and have it give us a shot at a triple for the rest of the weekend, but we still have two more shots to win in his honor, and we’re going to give it our best effort.”
Jesse Love will be well-prepared for NASCAR Cup Series debut at Bristol
Richard Childress Racing driver Jesse Love is making his NASCAR Cup Series debut in Sunday’s Food City 500, and one thing is certain: the 20-year-old from Menlo Park, Calif., can’t be faulted for lack of preparation.
“I think I probably ran about probably 2,000 laps this week on the simulator, whether it be the DIL (driver-in-the-loop simulator) at the GM Tech Center or whether it be even iRacing with Scott Speed,” Love said Saturday at Bristol.
“So just ran a lot of laps… trying different things. You know, one thing I did this week was I ran a couple 500 lap races by myself on iRacing, just to kind of condition myself to the mental drain it’s going to take to run 500 laps. Obviously, it’ll be the longest race in my life. Never ran a 24-hour race before, right? So this is going to be different for me in a lot of ways.”
Understandably, any driver’s first race in NASCAR’s top division is bound to be fraught with both anticipation and tension, but Love is trying maintain an even keel.
“Yeah, I was driving up here, and I kind of got all my emotion out on the way up here,” Love said. “Driving up here is like very mountainous and it was like driving to Baylands (Fremont, Calif.), which is where I grew up racing quarter midgets. It was kind of a similar terrain and route. So that was a pretty cool emotional experience for me.
“I remember when I was five, six, eight years old running quarter midgets with my dad, driving up this windy path one way or one-lane road up to the go-kart track and then now doing the same thing going to a Cup race. That was a really cool full-circle moment for me.
“And I feel like the best way to go about it, for me at least, is try to keep the emotions at a minimum; not be overly excited, not be overly emotional about anything, and then after the race I can kind of soak it all in, right?”
A variety of milestones on the horizon for Denny Hamlin
Denny Hamlin comes to Bristol Motor Speedway after consecutive victories at Martinsville Speedway and Darlington Raceway. He has never won three straight races.
Hamlin now has 56 NASCAR Cup Series victories, 11th all-time. His stated goal is to reach 60 wins, a total that would tie him with Kevin Harvick for 10th on the career list.
Within his immediate grasp is a 57th victory for Joe Gibbs Racing, which would break a tie with Kyle Busch for most by a single driver in the history of that organization.
Given that Hamlin is in his 20th full season with JGR, that mark would be of considerable significance.
“It certainly is special,” Hamlin said Saturday before final Cup practice. “It’s such a historical organization with the championship drivers. I’ve been there longer than anyone else, so that increases my odds.
“There have been a lot of greats that have ran through there, so it is certainly a title I would like to have.”
Hamlin, who will make his 400th consecutive Cup start and 695th overall, could accomplish that goal and win three consecutive races for the first time in Sunday’s Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“Yeah, but I try not to psych myself out too much about it, because I think you sometimes put so much emphasis on those type of situations and you end up making silly mistakes,” Hamlin said. “I just try to be as even-keeled as I can. It is a new week. It is another great opportunity to win another race.
“If it just so happens that it is three in a row, that would be awesome and a very proud moment in my career, but it’s not something that we set out to do each and every week. We don’t go into the season saying, ‘All right, I want to win, at some point, three in a row this year.
“That’s such a hard thing to do because all of the stars have to align perfectly like we saw last week (at Darlington). They did align perfectly for us. It would be fantastic—some of the greats in our sport have done it, and I haven’t. Just shows how difficult it is.”
