Bristol loses its identity, racing turns into a snoozer

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- It was Lap 200 of the Sharpie 500 on Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, and members of the local Emergency Response Team stood at the ready.

Well, not really.

One sat in a golf cart, dozing off. This guy actually was falling asleep while 43 Nextel Cup racecars roared through Turn 3 right in front of him, maybe a couple of football first downs away.

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Was this really the night race at Bristol?

Where were the sparks? Where was the electricity? Where was the banging that made this place so famous?

This is the track where Cup cars always go bump in the night. Or at least they always used to.

That wasn't the case Saturday night. Working multiple grooves on a newly resurfaced track in Cars of Tomorrow that are here to stay for all Bristol races in the foreseeable future, the Sharpie 500 quickly presented itself as a curious show.

There was plenty of side-by-side racing, as drivers took their cars two-wide and three-wide -- sometimes running right next to each other for laps at a time. That seems like, in theory, it should have made for an exciting race.

But for the most part, it simply wasn't. As much as it hurts to say this about Bristol, the Wrigley Field of stock-car racing and a Mecca for all those who enjoy the sport, the race was, as the ERT member could attest as he fought to keep his eyes open, more than a little on the boring side.

One veteran media member said he had never seen the drivers in such a good mood before the race. They all loved the new track, loved the way they could move their cars all over the place on it.

And before it was over, many were even speaking lovingly of the same COT vehicle they had ripped when the first COT race in history was run back at the venue in March. That included driver Denny Hamlin, who had to bow out early when the engine in his No. 11 Chevrolet caught fire and failed him on Lap 212, causing him to spin out and wake up the ERT guy at least momentarily (watch video).

"We can get excited about this, about how we ran, because we really didn't know what we were going to have going into today," said Hamlin, who had to start at the rear of the field because of an engine change made before the race and had worked his way all the way up to seventh when the engine went. "For our car to perform the way it did today was amazing. I couldn't be happier to drive it. I could just go anywhere I wanted to with the thing, and it would go."

And because they could go anywhere they wanted to go in the cars they once claimed were uniformly ill-handling and no fun to drive, they were able to stay out of each other's way. If it hadn't been for rookie David Ragan carrying the yellow caution flag banner almost all by himself (he spun out three times without any help from another competitor), there would have been almost nothing to even occasionally force the crowd of 160,000-plus to the edges of their prized Bristol seats.

The race began with a long green-flag run. On a track where the record for cautions in a 500-lap race is 20 (three times, last during the August night race in 2003), the first yellow didn't fly until Lap 127. If Ragan could have ceased and desisted from running into the wall all by his lonesome, there would have been even longer green-flag runs later. (Continued)