Despite changes, Bristol can still unleash havoc (cont'd)

Not after Saturday, when the old girl produced perhaps her most memorable event since Jeff Gordon moved Rusty Wallace out of the way to win in the late summer of 2002. "Typical Bristol wreck," title contender Jeff Burton said after his Chevrolet was rendered unusable by an accident that saw him get hit from behind by Joe Nemechek and sent hurling into Sterling Marlin (watch video). There was plenty of typical Bristol on display Saturday night, from the prospective Chase drivers who saw their cars hauled away in pieces, to the gamesmanship between Busch and Edwards, to the vocal finger-pointing that inevitably followed any incident on the tight, high-banked track.

"Michael Waltrip is the worst driver in NASCAR, period!" Clint Bowyer howled over his radio after Waltrip's No. 55 clipped the rear end of Casey Mears' vehicle, igniting a seven-car accident that left all kinds of wreckage and fluid on the racetrack and halted the event under a red flag for 12 minutes. But Bowyer didn't have the benefit of a replay; turns out Mears' spotter had told the Hendrick Motorsports driver that he was clear when he wasn't, and Waltrip was minding his own business when the No. 5 car came up the track (watch video).

Of course, that only led to another round of reproach. "I like my spotter. He's a good guy. But man, that's ridiculous," Mears said. "We took a bunch of cars out for no reason. I was just running along, heard 'clear, clear, clear,' and went up and there was someone still there. We just took out a bunch of cars for no reason, and ourselves. I'm pretty upset about it. There were a lot of people that were involved in that who shouldn't have been involved at all, because it shouldn't have happened."

This is still a racetrack with a lot of bite in it, as evidenced by the calamities that befell so many drivers in the waning laps of the facility's spring race. No question, the new concrete installed in the spring of 2007 has had an effect; Saturday night brought uncharacteristically long green-flag runs, a product of a surface that allows drivers to pass one another rather than simply bump them out of the way. But people loved that bumping, and the confrontations it sometimes produced. No wonder this year's Bristol commemorative die-cast was a little car with scrapes and tire doughnut marks all down its sides.

But guess what -- Saturday night, plenty of real racecars, even those not caught up in accidents, finished with scrapes and doughnuts down the sides. True, Busch led 415 laps. But Cale Yarborough led all 500 in 1973, and then another 495 in 1977, during the supposed good 'ol days. The new surface and the new car have clearly thrust this racetrack into something of a transitional period, where drivers are learning new ways to compete on it and fans are (often begrudgingly) getting used to a new kind of action. But it's still Bristol. Undoubtedly, they'll be throwing helmets and punching ambulances again before too long.

"I don't know if I liked this one better than the old one. I liked them both, the way the track was before and the way the track is now," Edwards said. "I think the fans see more true racing on this surface rather than give-and-take and nudging people out of the way for every position. So I think this is better, and you're going to see exciting races here for a long time to come. It is hard to pass, extremely hard to pass, but the track is small enough that there's always something going on."

Even after the checkered flag. On the cool-down lap following the race, Busch went high up the racetrack to bump Edwards' car broadside. The driver of the No. 99 responded by spinning Busch, drawing the biggest cheer of the night (watch video). "The steering wheel must have come out of my hand, I guess," Edwards said sheepishly in Victory Lane. Busch was summoned to the NASCAR hauler for a chat. J.D. Gibbs, president of Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing team, warned Edwards in the garage that people reap what they sow. There's suddenly a lot more zip in NASCAR's championship chase, thanks to one little track many thought would never be the same.

"This is a great racetrack. It's always been a good racetrack," said Denny Hamlin, who finshed third behind Edwards and Busch. "It doesn't matter what the circuit is, you're going to have finishes like this on a common basis. So I mean, it just worked out to where it was exciting. It was pretty boring from our standpoint, because the 18 [Kyle Busch] was walking away from it till the very end."

But the end is what everyone is going to remember. The end may have instigated a rivalry, and unquestionably proved that Bristol is back.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer