Bristol weekend

“Food City 250”

BRISTOL, TENNESSEE- The Nationwide Series would run their next race on the half-mile speedway of Bristol. More like a bumper car event, these drivers will be racing laps under fifteen seconds while being door to door and bumper to bumper all night long. Kyle Busch (54) took the pole over Brian Scott (2). Unfortunately, I missed the pre-race ceremonies and the first couple dozen laps.

The race ran green for the first hundred laps, except for one caution for debris on lap 66.

On lap 105, Nelson Piquet Jr. (30) spun out all by himself.

On lap 157, Drew Herring (18) crashed, leaving only the top ten cars on the lead lap.

On lap 166, Parker Kligerman (77) and Brian Vickers (20) both crashed. Some drivers felt there was something on the track causing the cars to slide up and into the wall. Several cars looked like they were sliding up, but not all of the spun and wrecked.

The race ran pretty clean all night, giving Kyle Busch (54) the victory over Brad Keselowski (22).

The rest of the top ten were: Austin Dillon (3), Justin Allgaier (31), Kyle Larson (32), Trevor Bayne (6), Ty Dillon (33), Kasey Kahne (5), Brian Scott (2) and Elliott Sadler (11) (one lap down).

The next race will be in Atlanta at 7 PM EST on ESPN2 next Saturday.


 

“IRWIN TOOLS 500”

BRISTOL, TENNESSEE- The Cup Series ran one of their final three races at Bristol, before the ultimate Chase for the Championship begins. Denny Hamlin (11) was able to edge Kurt Busch (78) for the Pole position for this race. This week, Tony Stewart announced that he will not return this season, and Mark Martin will replace him for the rest of the races. In Opening Ceremonies, The children of the garage workers were a big part of the ceremonies, as they provided the Pledge of Allegiance and they also sang the National Anthem. A 10 plane squad flew over head with a group from Aerodynamics. Ron Ramsey provided the Invocation, and 300 Irwin Tools Tradesman were the races Grand Marshall’s.

The race began with plenty of bumping and banging between the races. On lap 42, Ryan Truex (51) crashed to bring out the first caution of the night race. While leaving pit road, Brad Keselowski (2) came out of his pit box, and ran into the rear end of David Reutimann (83), who was entering his pit box.

On lap 90, Josh Wise (35) ran up and into the wall. He was tagged by Kurt Busch (78). Busch then had to make a stop on pit road for issues, and while leaving pit road, he was penalized for speeding. He had led many laps up to this point, and his night began to come apart at this point.

On lap 107, a debris caution flew. Just prior to the caution coming out, Joey Lagono (22) and Kyle Busch (18) got together after Busch bobbled and bounced off the wall in front of Lagono. Busch was then penalized for too many men over the wall during his pit stop. Kurt Busch returned to the race track after falling 26 laps down to the leaders. A loose wheel caused all his troubles, as they tried to put in spacers to fix the issue and that did not work. A new hub was needed on the car for him to continue racing.

On lap 176, Clint Bowyer (15) was leading the race, and a lap car driven by Travis Kvapil (93) spun him out, after he was passed by the leader. Bobby Labonte (47) who was also having a great race, as he was also in the top five slid sideways into the spun out car of Bowyer. During the pit stop, Lagono, Paul Menard (27) and David Regan (34) were all penalized for speeding on pit road.

The fifth caution came out on lap 202, when Tony Raines (33) lost a tire and started sliding up to the wall. A couple cars, including Jimmie Johnson (48) received minor damage as they slipped by between his car and the outside wall. On the restart, leader Carl Edwards (99) was warned for a bad start (slow).

Another caution came out on lap 242 for debris on the track. Matt Kenseth (20) was penalized for speeding on pit road, and went to the rear of the field. Kyle Busch (18) who was kept back in the upper twenties and lower thirties position most of the race, stayed out with Paul Menard to gain track position while everyone else made pit stops.
On lap 335, David Gilliland (38) and Bobby Labonte got together on track to bring out the seventh caution. Juan Montoya (42) was penalized for speeding on pit road.

On lap 361, Points Leader Jimmie Johnson was involved in a four car incident, that destroyed the front end of his race car. Aric Almirola (43), Brian Vickers (55) and David Reutimann (83) were all involved in the wreck. It appeared that Johnson had slowed down enough to stay out of trouble, just as the car driven by Reutimann came down the track in front of him, and he had nowhere to go.

The ninth caution was on lap 375, Montoya barely touched the back end of David Stremme (30), causing Stremme to make contact with Jeff Burton (31). Burton then spun out. Stremme showed he was not happy, as he ran up beside Montoya a touched cars side to side.

On lap 381, the race leader and dominant car of Carl Edwards began having an engine issue. He began dropping spots left and right very quickly. It was decided to pull him off track around ten laps later. An internal issue was to blame for his night being ended.
Caution number ten flew on lap 439, when debris was seen on track. The Daytona/Talladega style “Big One” then happened on lap 446, when a tire failure on Denny Hamlin’s (11) car sent him into the side of Ryan Newman (39). Also caught up in this wreck were, Kevin Harvick (29), Brad Keselowski (2), David Stremme (30), Martin Truex Jr. (56) and Ken Schrader (32). A short “Red Flag” was thrown to get the track cleaned up.

Matt Kenseth (200 had been able to take the lead after Carl Edwards troubles, and Kenseth was able to hold off a hard charging Kasey Kahne (5) for the victory. This was Kenseth’s fifth win of the season, and is the most of any driver in the Sprint Cup Series to date.

The rest of the top ten were: Juan Montoya (42), Brian Vickers (55), Joey Lagono (22), Paul Menard (27), Jeff Gordon (24), Marcus Ambrose (9), Greg Biffle (16) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (88).

The next race will be in Atlanta on Sunday at 7 PM EST on ESPN.

Note: This race was televised on ABC and the coverage was extremely poor. There was continuous interference in the audio and video for a majority of the race. All together channel knock out happened a few times throughout the race as well.