Seven-time Bristol winner Kyle Busch jumped to the top of the leaderboard in Friday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice when he logged a lap of 126.729 mph in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Martin Truex Jr. recorded the second-fastest practice lap of the session when he circled the .533-mile track at 126.312 mph in the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota.
Three Fords rounded out the top five: Aric Almirola in the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (126.287 mph), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford (126.154 mph) and last week’s winner, Kevin Harvick, in the No. 4 SHR Ford (125.914 mph).
Bubba Wallace sustained some minor right-side damage when he scraped his No. 43 Chevrolet against the outside wall about 30 minutes into the practice session.
Later, Kyle Larson impressively saved his No. 42 Chevrolet from smacking the outside wall when his car slid up the track while driving in the high groove.
Kyle Larson was second-fastest, logging a lap of 126.312 mph in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman was third in his No. 88 Chevrolet at 126.295 mph.
Erik Jones (126.187 mph) in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and Ryan Blaney (126.146 mph) in the No. 12 Team Penske Ford rounded out the top five in the one hour, 20-minute practice session.
Cars spent about the first 15 minutes of the first practice working on pit road speeds; Bowman’s No. 88 Chevrolet was the first car on the track at 10:50 a.m. ET.
The following cars served 15-minute practice holds at the end of the session for failing pre-race inspection two times: No. 19 Daniel Suarez, No. 31 Ryan Newman, No. 38 David Ragan and No. 43 Bubba Wallace.
NASCAR and track officials have moved up the start time for Saturday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway to 6:30 p.m. ET (NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) because of the potential for inclement weather.
Race officials also moved up the start time for Friday night’s Food City 300 for the NASCAR Xfinity Series (NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) by 15 minutes. That event’s start time is now set for 7:15 p.m. ET.
Saturday evening’s Bristol Night Race originally was scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. ET. That start time — and all pre-race ceremonies — have been moved up to one hour earlier.
Officials reached the decision to adjust the weekend schedule on Friday morning, faced with a chance of precipitation for the next two nights of racing at the .533-mile track.
Saturday’s race under the lights is the 24th of 26 regular-season races in the Monster Energy Series.
Everybody likes stats. All-time wins lists, qualifying speed records, counting the number of times Denny Hamlin has sped on pit road — it’s all interesting, but it’s also been done to death.
Instead, let’s take a look at something a little different: which songs drivers choose to accompany their driver introduction walk-out twice a year at Bristol Motor Speedway when the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race hits the high-banked short track in Tennessee.
As we’venoted, since 2009, Bristol Motor Speedway has tasked each driver with selecting their driver intro music — often leading to fun and memorable moments — and we’ve taken it upon ourselves to hoard all this data and obsess over observations like we’re Cole Pearn at a Furniture Row Racing competition meeting.
Most Popular Songs
Unsurprisingly, based on the trends noted in our last analysis, AC/DC’s Thunderstruck remains at the top of the most popular song list — selected 10 times to accompany drivers — even despite the fact that no driver entered to the classic hit in the most recent Bristol race this spring. In fact, most of the top 10 remained largely unchanged — the only exception being Luke Bryan’s Huntin’, Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day moving into this elite group, courtesy of Ryan Newman.
Why such little change at the top since last race? The most likely scenario to which our analysts (well, me, the author, who is not an actual analyst of anything) attribute this is Bristol Motor Speedway’s recent change to how most drivers’ songs are selected: instead of giving drivers carte blanche, fans voted on one of three songs handpicked for each driver.
Most Popular Artists
Of all 365 musical acts selected for driver introduction songs, AC/DC continues to maintain a stranglehold on first place in the most popular driver introduction song category, selected 26 times — double any other group, and a whopping 3.45% of all entrances since 2009.
There is now, however, a new three-way tie for second place on the list after the spring race: Motley Crue and Metallica have now been used 13 times, tying them with fellow runner-up Kid Rock, who hasn’t had much usage since Tony Stewart retired.
Spring 2018 Musical Debuts
A total of 15 new artists graced the NASCAR world with their debut on Bristol’s stage in the spring race, including notable how-the-heck-have-they-never-been-picked-before acts like Migos, Weezer, and The Beach Boys (as well as John Cena and Bill Elliott for some reason).
The most recent debuts:
Beach Boys (Brad Keselowski)
I Prevail (Alex Bowman)
The Doobie Brothers (Michael McDowell)
Liberty University (William Byron)
Pat Boone (Daniel Suarez)
Bill Elliott (Chase Elliott)
Kenny Loggins (AJ Allmendinger and Gray Gaulding)
Jan Hammer (Aric Almirola)
Weezer (Chris Buescher)
John Cena (Matt DiBenedetto)
Clint Black (Martin Truex Jr.)
Judah and the Lion (Landon Cassill)
Migos (Ty Dillon and Reed Sorenson)
Hank Williams* (Corey LaJoie)
Stompin’ Tom Connors (DJ Kennington)
*Corey LaJoie requested “The Walmart Yodeling Song” which makes his choice of what’s technically a Hank Williams song exponentially-less cool.
Bill Elliott: 44-time race winner, current Xfinity Series driver, and now, thanks to his son, Bristol driver intro song musical artist. “Awesome Bill” is the first to hold such a designation.
If you haven’t already heard Elliott’s A Crazy Racin’ Man from the 1983 hit album Stock Car Racing’s Entertainers of the Year, listen for yourself:
Bill’s spitting STRAIGHT-UP FIRE on this track.
A Fantasy Racing Note
First discovered last year, we’ll continue to note the Keselowski Phenomenon as long as it remains true: when Brad Keselowski chooses a Kid Rock song for his intro, he wins the race, as he did in the 2011 Night Race and the 2012 Spring Race. When he does not choose Kid Rock, he does not win the race, which has been the case in every other Bristol race since the 2012 Night Race.
Here’s a list of every race winner’s song selection since Bristol Motor Speedway kicked off the tradition in 2009:
2009 (Night) Kyle Busch: Kanye West’s “Amazing”
2010 (Spring) Jimmie Johnson: Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On”
2018 (Spring) Kyle Busch: DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win”
The complete list of race-winning artists:
Raytona 500 (2 wins)
Kid Rock (2)
Kanye West (1)
Led Zeppelin (1)
V.I.C. (1)
Kip Moore (1)
Metallica (1)
Motley Crue (1)
Carl Orff (1)
Megadeth (1)
Dropkick Murphys (1)
Bon Jovi (1)
Jake Owen (1)
Tupac (1)
Imagine Dragons (1)
DJ Khaled (1)
Facts, Figures, and Interesting Notes
Twelve drivers have raced in all 18 races where introduction music was used (Clint Bowyer, David Ragan, Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray, Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Paul Menard, and Ryan Newman).
This year’s spring race marked the first time Matt Kenseth missed a Bristol driver introduction song.
NASCAR nation has extended its Nickelback-free streak even further. It’s been since 2011, so maybe we’re in the clear now. Maybe this is because everyone wants to be like Cole Pearn:
Come on Nickelback?!? I'd rather get a needle in the eye. Nobody in Canada listens to that
Still, we must remain vigilant and refuse to let our guard down.
Ryan Newman again extended his streak of picking Luke Bryan’s Huntin’, Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day to four races in a row — now just one shy of tying Jeff Burton’s record five-in-a-row selections of Guns N’ Roses’ Welcome to the Jungle.
Newman’s fourth-consecutive pick of the same song ties him with Tony Stewart (Kid Rock’s Bawitdaba) and David Reutimann (The Offspring’s Pretty Fly For A White Guy).
Other numbers to consider:
18 races at Bristol have used driver introduction songs so far, starting in the 2009 night race.
753 musical entrances have been made. 756 total selections have been made, but over the years, three drivers have DNQed, meaning their picks never made it to the big stage.
571 different songs have been used in total.
365 different artists or musical acts have been used.
115 songs have been used more than once.
That’s a 20.1% song re-usage rate (up from 20.0% last year).
Take a look at the master collection of data below and find some observations of your own. Please do tweet any interesting stats or patterns you might find — and don’t forget to tune in Saturday night (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN) to see what happens to our data after this year’s Night Race.
The End?
Bristol Motor Speedway noted for Saturday night’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver introductions, songs selected in this year’s spring race will be used, breaking the 18-race streak of unique song selections. For now, there’s no word on whether or not the tradition will resume in the future, but we’re holding out hope. After nearly a decade, driver intro songs have basically have become an institution, and we’d hate for all this data and research no one asked us to analyze to become useless.
Take a look at the master collection of data below and find some observations of your own. Please do tweet any interesting stats or patterns you might find.
NASCAR announced before the season that it will standardize at-track team rosters across all three national series in 2018, providing a structure for the number of personnel working on each vehicle during the course of a race weekend.
Official team rosters for Saturday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol (7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN/NBC Sports App, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) have been released. Click the print icon above, or the link below.
Trackside Live is turning it up a notch at Bristol Motor Speedway with two-action packed shows. The first show will be at 2 p.m. ET on Friday, Aug. 17, while the second show will be at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 18.
Don’t miss your chance to meet your favorite drivers ahead of one of the final regular season races at the Last Great Colosseum, where anything can happen.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Kasey Kahne said Friday that he loves NASCAR but wanted to spend more time with his family, one day after announcing his pending retirement from NASCAR at season’s end.
“I love NASCAR, it’s been a big part of my life, and I’ve enjoyed every bit of it,” Kahne said. “We’ll keep watching and keep coming to the races when I can and supporting it, supporting dirt-car racing, supporting all the racing. … It’s something I always truly have enjoyed, but needed to back off a little bit because it’s the time I’m missing with him (son Tanner).”
For Kahne, the decision to retire from full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series racing came down to one primary factor—his inability to commit his full energy and focus to the sport.
It wasn’t that Kahne didn’t have opportunities to continue his career at NASCAR’s highest level. He could have remained at Leavine Family Racing, where he has spent the 2018 season after parting ways with Hendrick Motorsports. In fact, Kahne already had begun discussions with the team about an extension. But thoughts of his son Tanner and a desire to spend more time with the sprint car team he owns finally came to a head in the decision Kahne announced via Twitter on Thursday morning.
“I’ve thought about this decision for many months, if not longer,” Kahne wrote in a statement over his own signature. “It’s time for me to step away from racing in NASCAR full time.
“I appreciate everything LFR has done for me this season and offering the opportunity to race in 2019.”
Ultimately, it was an option Kahne felt he had to turn down. On Friday morning at Bristol Motor Speedway, the 38-year-old driver elaborated on his Thursday tweet.
“I had some neat opportunities with Leavine,” Kahne said. “We were working together for the season, and it was going to keep getting better. There was money there. There were a few other offers that I had received over the last month and just options that we could talk about, things like that. It felt really good to have that, but at the same time, it wasn’t necessarily about that anymore.
“I didn’t feel that I could seriously race all of next year and be completely committed 100 percent, and I feel like there are guys out there that can be and that should have those opportunities over me at this point in time, because I don’t feel like I can be that guy from this point on.”
Kahne has accumulated 18 victories in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, but his win in last year’s Brickyard 400 marked his only visit to Victory Lane since the 2014 season and his sixth since joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2012.
Kahne’s watershed season came in 2006 with team owner Ray Evernham and crew chief Kenny Francis. He won six races that year and finished eighth in the final standings. All told, he qualified for the postseason Playoffs six times, with a best points finish of fourth in 2012.
Kahne’s decision comes concurrent with his greatest success as a sprint car owner. Brad Sweet, who drives for Kahne, won the marquee Knoxville (Iowa) Nationals on Saturday night. Kahne said he might compete in as many as 50 races in his own cars.
“Not a full deal, because that doesn’t do me much good for backing off a bit,” Kahne said. “But you can do 40 or 50 races in about three months in that deal and still have eight or nine months to do other things.”
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Matt Crafton found himself in an unusual position Thursday night, pulling for former teammate Johnny Sauter.
A new, championship-eligible winner at Bristol Motor Speedway would have unseated him from postseason contention in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. But Crafton — with an assist from Sauter — held on for an eighth-place finish in the UNOH 200, locking up the eighth and final berth in the postseason picture.
“At the end of the day, I was glad Johnny won,” Crafton said with a grin after the regular-season finale.
Crafton, a two-time series champion, enters the playoffs with a string of five consecutive top-10 finishes. But the 42-year-old veteran hasn’t won since last July at Eldora Speedway, and his current clip in the laps-led category sits at a five-year low.
Crafton says he isn’t blaming his ThorSport Racing team’s adjustment to a new manufacturer (Ford) this season, pointing to teammate Ben Rhodes’ solid performance thus far in equipment built and tuned under the same shop roof. Now that he’s in, his No. 88 group — led by longtime crew chief Carl “Junior” Joiner — has seven races to work toward improvement.
“I said it the other day in an interview, it was if we get in, we get in; if we don’t, we didn’t deserve to because we haven’t been ourselves this year,” Crafton said. “I don’t know what it is. People all want to say it’s the (manufacturer) switch, but the 41’s (Rhodes) had speed. Here in the last eight races, we’ve gotten a lot better, but we haven’t been the consistent group that we’ve been in the past with me and Junior and this whole group.
“We’ve always been able to put races together — top five, top 10 and get some wins. This year, we’ve just had too many 30th place, 20th place and just breaks. Just been off a little bit, but I know for the packages that we worked on here lately, I feel real good going into the playoffs.”
That path to a potential third series championship begins Sunday, Aug. 26, in the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (2:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Crafton has been stealthy good at the historic road course outside Toronto, with four top-10 results — including a runner-up finish there in 2015.
“We’re going to a road course and you actually get to lift and shift and do a whole bunch of fun stuff there,” Crafton said. “We’ve been really good there in the past. We finished second, we ran up front and we led laps, so this Menard’s F-150, I really feel good and I know we can go win one of these next three.”
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Passing John Hunter Nemechek for the lead on Lap 196 of 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Johnny Sauter picked up his series-best fifth victory of the season, along with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular-season championship, but fellow two-time champion Matt Crafton wasn’t about to begrudge Sauter his success.
Thanks to Sauter’s win, Crafton grabbed the eighth and final spot in the NCWTS Playoffs on points. Also advancing to the playoff in Thursday night’s UNOH 200 were race runner-up Stewart Friesen and Grant Enfinger, who clinched the sixth playoff berth when he took the green flag to start the race.
Those three join race winners Sauter, Brett Moffitt, Noah Gragson, Ben Rhodes and Justin Haley in the NCWTS postseason, which starts Aug. 26 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.
Nemechek passed Sauter for the lead in heavy traffic on Lap 177, but after pulling out to a lead of more than 10 truck-lengths, Nemechek suffered fuel pickup issues late in the race, allowing both Sauter and Friesen to pass him before the finish.
“I’m so proud of this team,” said Sauter, who won for the first time at the .533-mile high-banked concrete track and the 22nd time in his career. “I knew we had a great truck today. What a way to cap off the regular season with a win. I had to race really hard with the 52 (Friesen) there for a while, which was exciting.”
In fact, Sauter and Friesen waged an intense battle for second place, with Friesen briefly gaining the spot in traffic before Sauter prevailed by splitting the middle between Friesen and a lapped truck. That proved to be the winning pass, after Nemechek had his troubles in the last few laps.
“I’ve never won at Bristol before, so I was pumped,” Sauter said. “I’m so lucky I’ve got this group of guys. We won at Bristol—this is the ultimate. For a short track guy, and I consider myself a short-track guy, to get a win at a place like this is so special.
“I’m just pumped, and I can’t wait to start our championship run.”
Still seeking his first victory in the series, Friesen nevertheless reveled in the competition.
“That was probably the most fun I’ve had all year,” Friesen said. “Bumping and grinding, and no better guys to race with than John Hunter and Johnny. We’ll take it and move on.”
Notes: Sauter led 58 laps to Nemechek’s 104. Nemechek won both the first and second stages. Sauter enters the playoffs as the top seed, with 42 playoff points to 27 for Moffitt in second and 22 for Gragson in third.
NASCAR officials found one lug nut missing off the No. 88 of Crafton during post-race inspection. Any potential penalties will be announced early next week.
Johnny Sauter sealed the 2018 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular-season championship Thursday at Bristol Motor Speedway. Sauter, ahead by 56 points entering Thursday’s UNOH 200, clinched the crown just by starting the regular-season finale. He qualified fourth behind pole winner Christopher Bell at the .533-mile track.
The Wisconsin native then went out and took home the checkered flag for his fifth victory of the 2018 season.
Sauter, who built a substantial lead in the standings by winning four of the first eight races of the season, captured his first Truck Series title in 2016. He was the series’ runner-up in 2011 and 2017.
Sauter became the first recipient of one of the regular-season championship trophies, unveiled this week for all three NASCAR national series. That added to the additional souvenirs he collected for the race win Thursday night at Bristol.
“Yeah, I got a lot of trophies tonight. I got one for the championship, two for the win tonight and a sword, all kinds of stuff,” Sauter said. “A lot of hardware tonight, but I’ll take it. This is so cool. I consider myself a short-track guy, and to get a short-track win at a historic place like this where I’ve finished second before and raced here for so many years, this is the ultimate.”
Here is a look at the full field of eight drivers for the seven-race postseason, complete with point totals and wins:
1. Johnny Sauter (2,042 points; Wins at Daytona, Dover, Charlotte, Texas and Bristol)
2. Brett Moffitt (2,027 points; Wins at Atlanta, Iowa, Chicago and Michigan)
3. Noah Gragson (2,022 points; Won at Kansas)
4. Ben Rhodes (2,014 points; Won at Kentucky)
5. Stewart Friesen (2,012 points; qualified on points)
6. Grant Enfinger (2,011 points; qualified on points)
7. Justin Haley (2,009 points; Won at Gateway)
8. Matt Crafton (2,003 points; qualified on points)
The Truck Series Playoffs kick off at 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday, Aug. 26, in the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
GREENVILLE, S.C. – Last Sunday, 6-year-old Keelan Harvick ran across the racing surface at Michigan International Speedway to claim the checkered flag after his father, Kevin Harvick, won the Consumers Energy 400.
Keelan then enjoyed a victory ride with his father in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.
Three days later, another young boy, unable to run, got behind the wheel of the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford— with an assist from driver David Ragan.
But 5-year-old Wyatt Banks, who woke up one morning with his legs inexplicably paralyzed, wasn’t at a race track. He was an integral part of Ragan’s appearance on Wednesday at the Shriners Hospital for Children, where Wyatt receives treatment.
And for Wyatt, sitting in Ragan’s show car with the Shriners Hospital paint scheme the driver will run this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, the thrill was no less intense.
For Ragan, the association with the Shriners Hospitals is as sincere and committed as it gets. Ragan became a Shriner in 2012 after joining a Masonic lodge in Cornelius, North Carolina.
“I’ve got a secret handshake, but I can’t tell you,” Ragan quipped.
To date, he has visited roughly half the 22 Shriners Hospitals in the United States. The visit to the Greenville hospital was his second there.
“I’m fortunate to have a dream job,” Ragan said. “I get to drive race cars for a living. Like any job, I have my good days and bad days, so it’s easy to get stressed out over a performance, or certain part failures or mistakes that I make on the race track.
“But at the end of the day, I still have the full movement of my body. I’m healthy. I don’t have any ailments that keep me down. So I’m able to go out and live a fulfilled life. There are some kids who don’t have that potential. So it’s my way of giving back to the local community and serving one another.”
Wyatt will get a taste of real, big-time racing when he visits Bristol this weekend as Ragan’s guest. So will Trana Pittam, director of public relations for the Shriners Hospital in Greenville, who will be attending her first NASCAR race.
Pittam was quick to underscore the importance of Ragan’s visit to the facility.
“It’s incredible to have someone who’s such a supporter, and who has such a platform to be able to reach so many people and let everybody know about the mission of the Shriners and the lives that can be changed by the care that we offered,” said Pittam, who emphasized that no child will ever be turned away from the hospital for lack of money.
On their visit to Bristol, both she and Wyatt may have the opportunity to see some familiar technology. The Optical Scanning Station used for inspection at NASCAR tracks is similar in concept to a scanning system used at the hospital in Greenville.
“As kids grow, and they have a prosthetic limb, or they have some type of spinal cord injury where they can’t walk correctly, they’re always needing adjustment as they get older, as their bones grow and as they grow as a kid,” Ragan said. “That’s something that, every six months or every year, they’ve got to be back at the hospital getting adjusted. So that prosthetic leg that a young kid has today, it’s obsolete six months from now.
“They have basically a white-light scanning room that has pressure points in the floor, and it has digital cameras all around the room. A kid walks back and forth, about 15 to 20 yards, and it has a system that’s checking the pressure and the way that his feet are bouncing, compressing the floor. It creates a digital file that shows that he’s moving a certain way. It can pick up alignment on his spine, so they know that the right leg needs a quarter of an inch of adjustment, or your left leg needs this, or your back brace needs this much of a degree of an adjustment.”
Like the Optical Scanning Station, the hospital’s system uses contact points on a patient’s body, as opposed to points on the body of a car.
“The kids get in there, and it’s like a laser show,” Ragan said. “So they have a 3D image that’s on file, and as the kid grows, that image continues to change. They can go to a CNC machine that they have here, and they can spit out a new prosthetic leg or a new brace.
“The technology that we have in the NASCAR, it’s all over the world that we live in. So that’s one way they use a scanning system here, much like we scan our race cars.”
At the hospital, though, there’s no potential pitfall to the scanning process.
“I don’t think there’s an inspection process, and nobody’s getting fined for failing,” Ragan said with a laugh.
