Heavy rain forces qualifying heats cancellation at Bristol dirt track....no stuff!

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 27, 2021 3:48 PM

Heavy rain forced the cancelation of the heat races set for Saturday night at Bristol and the starting lineup for the Food City Dirt Race has been set by owner points.

Kyle Larson is listed to start from the pole. However, Larson will drop to the rear of the field for the start because his Hendrick Motorsports team changed the engine in his No. 5 Chevrolet.

Looks like he had a grenade engine in there to qualify into the race, but they knew it would not last the race.
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Feedback, conversation, prompt Bristol competition changes

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 27, 2021 12:24 PM

NASCAR officials have made competition changes for Sunday’s Cup Series race on the dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway after feedback and lessons from practice.

The stages of the Food City Dirt Race will now end on laps 100 and 200. They were initially set to end at lap 75 and 150. The race remains 250 laps in length.

There will also be competition cautions thrown on lap 50 and lap 150. Caution laps will not count once NASCAR sends the free pass driver around the pace car.

Additionally, Cup Series teams will receive one additional set of tires, giving them a total of six. One set will be for qualifying, and five sets are for the race.

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These adjustments give officials additional opportunities for track prep while teams have more chances to change tires. During the two Friday practice sessions, there were concerns over how quickly tires were cording.

Teams are not sending their pit crews to Bristol this weekend because there will not be live pit stops. The only time they will be allowed to change tires will be during competition cautions and stage breaks.

“Obviously, this is something we haven’t done in the premier NASCAR series for a very long time – over 50 years – so we knew, especially with the character of this track and everything that we could be faced with coming into this weekend, some things we needed to adjust to,” said Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition. “Two things about this: It obviously gives us more opportunity to prepare the track during these breaks; and it kind of assures us that the story will really be about the racing. Trying to ask the tires to do more than they can isn’t in the best interest of anybody. So, we made these adjustments just in the best interest of this event and the entire industry.

“(We) had a lot of back and forth with some of the drivers and some of the crew chiefs. Kyle Larson has been extremely helpful on a lot of this. He and Austin Dillon (photo above) have been really good. Been engaged with us as they participated with the Dirt Nationals last week and continued to give us good feedback on what was going on. Just a lot of conversations that led to this decision.”

Bristol Motor Speedway, Cup Series, NASCAR

 

Bristol dirt earns a high score for fun – but tires are a concern

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 26, 2021 9:31 PM

Alex Bowman was the fastest Chevrolet driver in both practice sessions Friday on the dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway, and said he had a blast taking on the track.

“I thought it was a lot of fun,” Bowman said. “The tire wear is a little concerning, but other than that, everything went great, I thought. These cars are a lot of fun. They’re really driveable on dirt. It got a little rough, but it’s just character in the racetrack. I enjoyed the hell out of it.”

NASCAR Cup Series teams had two 50-minute practices for the inaugural Food City Dirt Race. It is the first time in 50 years that Cup Series teams have competed on dirt.

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Bowman has some dirt experience from competing in sprint cars. On the other hand, Denny Hamlin, who was the fastest Toyota driver in final practice, said the last time he ran on dirt was when he was in a go-kart at eight years old. But Hamlin also enjoyed the experience.

“I thought it was a lot of fun,” Hamlin said. “It’s a lot of car control and just kind of throttle control, steering wheel patience—things like that. Absolutely from my standpoint, it was a lot of fun and interesting to see when you get off line where you need to go to try to salvage the lap and search around for different color in the racetrack. Yeah, a little different bumpy, but overall it was a fun day.

“It kind of felt like a slow asphalt race or an asphalt race with less grip. You’re not really slinging it sideways. You can, that’s one technique, but it just seems like I just drove it like I normally would, and other than the visibility, it wasn’t that much different.”
So far, Hamlin has found that his regular driving technique translates well to dirt. Harrelson/Motorsport Images

The fastest driver overall in final practice was Ryan Blaney from the Ford camp. But Blaney didn’t think it meant much, and his team focused on getting the car right for the long run. As for the track, Blaney said it was rough and slick.

“Really rough, actually,” he said. “The track is kind of coming up and just crazy big divots. It’s definitely not smooth. It’s rough, but you just run through things that you think will work, and there wasn’t really much lane changing going on. [Kyle] Larson and [Tyler] Reddick could kind of run the top for a little while, and then it kind of went away after a handful of minutes, but just seeing how straight and smooth you can be and trying to keep tires on it.”

For as much fun as drivers seemed had though, there were also concerns on pit road. The word of the day? Tires.

“We’re seeing a lot of tires getting corded pretty quickly, especially right rears,” Blaney continued. “Even right fronts started to go pretty quick, so that’s something that’s going to come into play is saving your tires when the track is probably going to be like this come race time.”

In addition to two Cup Series practices, there were also two Truck Series practices on Friday. As the day wore on, the dust did cause visibility issues, but the biggest talk and concern was tire wear.

Sunday’s race will be 250 laps without live pit stops and only five sets of tires. The final stage is 100 laps, and teams can only change tires at the stage breaks.

“It’ll be a challenge, but it’s the same for everyone,” Hamlin said. “I’d be surprised if they don’t change some sort of rules between now and then, either give us another set of tires or a caution lap around. But if they don’t and they run on bald tires, then we all run on bald tires. You just have to make sure you do it better than everybody else.”

Chase Briscoe mentioned how red clay seems to be more abrasive than other dirt surfaces. The Stewart-Haas Racing rookie said he’d like to see NASCAR do something for the race but understands officials are in a tough spot.

“There are no pit crews here, so if you did have something happen under green, it’s just a tough situation,” Briscoe said. “Personally, I’d like to see something halfway through the final stage, maybe split it down the middle at 50 laps. I don’t think that would necessarily change the complexion of the race, but I think it would be better for the teams.”

Rudy Fugle, William Byron’s crew chief, hopes that NASCAR reviews things before the green flag.

“If we don’t get any more tires, it’s going to be really hard – you’re going to have to choose to ride and just maybe try to stay on the lead lap and have some tire left,” said Fugle. “Just not have a flat. I expect, hopefully, that they’re going to add another caution and another set of tires, and that’ll at least let you survive a little bit, but it’s still (about) saving some tire and having tire for when you need to.

“I think that’ll be is manage your stuff. That’s a little bit of the hard thing, and kind of coaching the driver and helping him with lap times and make sure you don’t go too hard, but obviously don’t go a lap down or anything like that. So, you just try to manage the race that way, which is difficult.”

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Bowman tops opening NASCAR practice on Bristol's dirt

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emailBy Kelly Crandall | March 26, 2021 3:03 PM

Alex Bowman was the fastest driver in the opening practice of NASCAR’s inaugural dirt weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Bowman led the way at 89.308 mph (21.155 seconds). He ran 42 laps, but his fastest lap was his first one on track.

“It’s a lot of fun, for sure,” Bowman said. “Pretty happy with our Ally Camaro; everybody at HMS worked really at guessing, I guess, on the dirt side of things and trying to use the little bit of knowledge that we do have. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a blast around here. It’s going pretty well so far, which I think is really good.

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“I feel like on long runs, we’re lacking. It’s like I just burn the right-rear off and can’t stick the right rear kind of center off, can’t make any drive. But we’ll keep working on it. Obviously, happy to be P1 after practice, but we definitely have some work to do.”

Second-, third-, and fourth-fastest were drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing. Christopher Bell was second-fastest at 89.999 mph, with Kyle Busch third at 88.898 mph and Denny Hamlin fourth-fastest at 88.819 mph.

Hamlin earned the nod of being the first driver to get on the dirt track when practice opened.

Completing the top five was Kyle Larson at 88.609 mph. Sixth-fastest was Chase Elliott at 88.522 mph, while Joey Logano was seventh-fastest at 88.089 mph.

Cole Custer was eighth-fastest at 87.707 mph. William Byron was ninth-fastest at 87.655 mph, and Chase Briscoe rounded out the top 10 at 87.600 mph.

There were no major incidents during the 50-minute session. Martin Truex Jr., who ended up 13th fastest, spun in Turn 2 but did not hit anything. JJ Yeley twice spun off Turn 4 but also escaped without problems.

Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman were the fastest in the best 10 consecutive lap average category.