Food City 500 Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After a fifth place result at Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago, it looked like things were starting to turn around for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and his No. 88 team, but a mechanical failure during Monday’s rain-delayed race at Bristol would put an end to his hopes of scoring another good finish. Starting the day in 20th after qualifying was rained out, Earnhardt had his work cut out for him with the unknown conditions on the concrete surface of Bristol’s high banks and was onlyRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As expected for much of the week leading up to Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol, the rains that were forecasted for race day came with full force, drenching the half-mile bullring and postponing the race until Monday. The 40 car Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series field will now get ready to race at 1:00 PM ET on Monday afternoon, with the race being shown on FOX and broadcast on PRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “It’s Mother Nature and we saw it coming on the radar forRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – For the third time this season, Kyle Larson will start a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race from the pole. And for the second time this year, he gained the top starting spot not through qualifying in time trials, but with an assist from Mother Nature. Because of intermittent rain at Bristol Motor Speedway, NASCAR canceled qualifying in favor of necessary practice for teams in the Cup, XFINITY and K&N Pro Series East Series. With the field for Sunday’s Food CityRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series gets back to business this weekend with the running of the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, we’ll take the opportunity to look at race from Bristol’s not too distant past, the 2008 Food City 500, for this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater.” A year after Bristol underwent a repave and reconfiguration to add a new layer of concrete and progressive banking in the turns, drivers were still getting acclimated to the new surface as wellRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor It’s Bristol baby! After the first off weekend of the season, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series gets back to business in a big way as they head back to a short track with this weekend’s stop at Bristol Motor Speedway for the running of the Food City 500. Bristol always brings out the excitement from fans and competitors alike as packing 40 cars into the half-mile high banked bullring can only be explained by the phrase “flying fighter jets in a gymnasium”, which isRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer With two-time Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning in attendance on behalf of his sponsor Nationwide Insurance, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. looked to find his way back to Bristol’s victory lane for the first time in 12 years, but had his work cut out for him from the very start of the race. After qualifying 20th, the start of the Food City 500 had Earnhardt and his team wondering just what went wrong when Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet stumbled when the green flag flew, forcing him downRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – The record will show that polesitter Carl Edwards won Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway in dominating fashion, leading 276 of 500 laps and beating runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the finish line by .766 seconds. But while Edwards cruised to victory with the fastest car in the eighth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season, drivers behind him suffered a litany of troubles, populating the top 10 with the most unlikely array of competitors this season. ConsiderRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer After scoring his best career finish in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series last weekend at Texas, Chase Elliott and the other Cup Series rookies headed into Bristol ready to get a crash course in racing on the half-mile bullring. All five rookies started outside of the top-15 and although Bristol seemed to have their number early on, most of them found a way to turn things around by the time the checkered flag flew. Leading the way once again was Elliott, who fell two lapsRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Matt Kenseth’s season of consistent struggles continued Sunday in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. After looking a sure contender for the race win, Kenseth crashed just 187 laps into the 500 lap event. Kenseth confirmed that it was a tire failure that plagued his No. 20 Dollar General Toyota, forcing hard contact with the wall and damaging the right side of his car. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver managed to work his way up to third after restarting 26th, but not long afterRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – Danica Patrick and Denny Hamlin had had their differences in the past, but what happened in Saturday morning’s first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice at Bristol Motor Speedway had nothing to do with old grudges. Nevertheless, contact between their two cars bent the sheet metal on both vehicles, Hamlin’s on the right front and Patrick’s on the left rear. Patrick, on new tires, was struggling with the handling of her No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet and had difficulty holding the bottom.Read More