Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Full race results | Updated series standings | SHOP: Edwards gear


BRISTOL, Tenn. – The record will show that polesitter Carl Edwards won Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway in dominating fashion, leading 276 of 500 laps and beating runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the finish line by .766 seconds.
 
But while Edwards cruised to victory with the fastest car in the eighth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season, drivers behind him suffered a litany of troubles, populating the top 10 with the most unlikely array of competitors this season.
 
Consider that:
 
Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Chase Elliott posted a career-best fourth-place result a week after recording a career-best fifth at Texas.
 
Trevor Bayne ran fifth, scoring his first top five since his surprise victory in the 2011 season-opening Daytona 500.
 
Matt DiBenedetto came home sixth, scoring a best-ever finish (and only the second top 10) for BK Racing. Clint Bowyer rallied from laps down to run eighth, his first top-10 and third lead-lap finish of the season.


RELATED: See all of Edwards’ career Cup wins

All Joe Gibbs Racing drivers other than Edwards had serious issues on Sunday. Kyle Busch, trying for his third straight Sprint Cup win, blew two right front tires, hit the wall twice and retired from the race in 38th place. Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin suffered similar issues with right fronts and finished 36th and 20th, respectively.
 
Kevin Harvick, who had arguably the fastest car in the closing stages of the race, never got a chance to show it, because he kept drawing the inside lane for every restart. The speed at Bristol is in the outside lane, and Harvick ultimately ran seventh with a No. 4 Chevrolet that was much better than its finishing position.
 
Simply put, it was another wild, action-filled afternoon at Thunder Valley, but for Edwards, it was simply an extension of what he and the No. 19 Toyota team have been accomplishing this season.
 
Edwards posted his seventh top 10 in eight races, climbed to second in the series standings (one point behind Harvick) and, first and foremost, all but assured himself of a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

RELATED: See the best photos from Sunday at the track
 
“It was a really great race for us,” said Edwards, who won for the first time this season, the fourth time at Bristol and the 26th time in his career. “It started on Friday well, started this winter building these cars. But the car was really fast in qualifying, got the first pit stall, and that meant a lot to the guys. They were just flawless on pit road. The car was really fast, and (crew chief) Dave (Rogers) did a good job of managing everything.
 
“We didn’t have any trouble, and really it’s just a testament to everybody at the shop and our whole team. Really awesome to have a win so now we can really have some fun and focus on this championship.”
 
If Edwards’ race was problem-free, hardly anything else was ordinary. Even Earnhardt’s second-place finish was an anomaly.
 
The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet inadvertently activated the “kill” switch on his car at the start of the race by applying too much brake pressure. Earnhardt rolled onto pit road and lost two laps while his team rebooted the electronic control unit (ECU) that governs the electronic fuel injection.
 
Two wave-arounds under caution in the first half of the race put the 88 back on the lead lap, and Earnhardt parlayed his good fortune into a better-than-expected run. Unlike Harvick, Earnhardt benefited from restarts in the outside lane, and on the final restart with five laps left, he rocketed from fourth to second and held off third-place finisher Kurt Busch.
 
“Just warming the brakes up, I engaged that system to kill the throttle,” Earnhardt said of the early trouble. “I was warming the brakes up like I always do, and apparently I applied too much pressure and it killed the motor.
 
“We’ll work on that and maybe raise that threshold a little bit, because I wasn’t really using the brake that much.”
 
Earnhardt acknowledged he stole a runner-up finish with a car that wasn’t that good.
 
“We had about a 10th-place car,” Earnhardt said. “We weren’t really that good all day. We tried a setup that we’ve never really ran here before, just trying to learn a little something going forward, and we’ll go home and science it out a little bit.
 
“We got real lucky the last three restarts to be on the outside line. We restarted 10th, sixth and fourth, and when you restart fourth, you’re typically going to come out in second place after that. I was hoping we didn’t have any more cautions after that. So it was good. We’ll take it.”

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RELATED: Full race results | Series standings

BRISTOL, Tenn. — It’s payday for Erik Jones, as the 19-year-old is going home with an extra-large $100,000 check for taking the first NASCAR XFINITY Series Dash 4 Cash bonus at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday.

The race-winning Joe Gibbs Racing driver led a total of 62 of the 200 laps in the Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300, and his victory essentially locks up a spot in the NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase. Should Jones record another Dash 4 Cash bonus in any of the three remaining Dash 4 Cash races, having two Dash 4 Cash bonuses would be the equivalent to a regular-season race win and give him a leg up on seeding when the Chase begins on Sept. 24 at Kentucky Speedway.

MORE: What to know about the Dash 4 Cash

“We got a really good restart and Kyle (Larson) just left the top open and we went up there and he worked pretty hard to keep us behind him,” Jones said post-race. “We just kept digging and it worked out. Just an awesome feeling. I never thought we’d get our first win here at Bristol.”

As for what he’s spending the dough on, Jones is a frugal man.

“Well, we’re all going to dinner so that’s going to be a big bill already I can tell,” Jones said. “After that, I don’t know, I’ll probably put it away. I don’t like to buy too many things.”

RELATED: Jones’ discusses emotional Victory Lane call

Jones’ JGR teammate Daniel Suarez, Richard Childress Racing driver Ty Dillon and JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier all qualified for the Dash 4 Cash competition by being the top two finishers among XFINITY Series regulars in the two heat races that preceded Saturday’s main event, which all came down to the final restart on Lap 198.

With just three laps remaining, it looked as if Suarez — who was running the highest of the Dash 4 Cash drivers in third — was going to be the one to hoist the cardboard check after the checkered flag fell. That was until his JGR teammate Kyle Busch spun his tires, backing up Suarez’s No. 19 Toyota.

“I feel like we had a top-three car all day long and we were running in the top five, top three all day,” Suarez said after the race. “In the end, the outside line was the preferred line and my teammate (Kyle Busch) spun his tires right there at the end with old tires and I was just right there stuck in the middle on the inside and there was nothing I can do at that point.”

Jones came from fourth on the restart to win the race. This was Jones’ first Dash 4 Cash event, as he was not eligible for the competition last season being a full-time Camping World Truck Series driver.

The next Dash 4 Cash event will be the ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday, April 23 (12:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The two heat races will be 35 laps each, with a 140-lap main event. There are a total of four Dash 4 Cash events in the 2016 season.

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BRISTOL, Tenn. — Darienne Breazeale couldn’t walk down pit road at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday without NASCAR fans stopping to gush over a video of the 23-year-old North Carolina native’s recent encounter with Kyle Busch in traffic.

Before her now-famous exchange with the Sprint Cup Series champion, Breazeale was just a diehard Kyle Busch fan who, as told by her friends, would knock down walls to meet the No. 18 driver.

No destruction was necessary when Busch pulled up right next Breazeale in traffic after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver swept the weekend at Martinsville Speedway, winning both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and Sprint Cup Series races.

RELATED: Watch the video


After the video went viral, Kyle and Samantha Busch invited Breazeale and her friends to spend the weekend with the No. 18 crew at “The Last Great Colosseum,” which is Breazeale’s first trip to the short track.

“Ever since we’ve got here, everybody has just been so nice,” Breazeale told NASCAR.com on Saturday. “Every part of his crew has just gone out of their way … They’ve let us sit out here with the team the whole time, stand with him while he does the Pledge of Allegiance, national anthem and all that stuff.”

This was just Day 1 at the track for Breazeale, who plans on participating in more interviews and events before Sunday’s Food City 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

“I didn’t even have anything planned today with him,” Breazeale said. “I have a certain time to be with him tomorrow … but today when he got out of the car after practice I was standing at his trailer and I was like, ‘What’s up?’ and he did like I did in the video, started freaking out and was like, ‘You’re awesome’ and gave me a high five.”

Breazeale has gotten an outpouring of attention since the video was posted, but what she’s most proud of is what it’s done for her favorite driver.

“What’s so awesome to me, is that people who didn’t like him (Kyle Busch) before or didn’t realize how exciting NASCAR can be, they saw that and they saw how someone can be that excited about it,” Breazeale said.

“People that didn’t like Kyle before, they’re like, ‘Wow, he’s a good guy.’ So I think he gained some fans out it.”

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RELATED: See Sunday’s full lineup | Full weekend schedule

 

BRISTOL, Tenn. — For Dale Earnhardt Jr., coming to Bristol Motor Speedway makes the 41-year-old feel like a kid again.

 

As the son of “The Intimidator,” it comes as no surprise that Earnhardt Jr. grew up around race tracks. While most children might have spent their adolescence frolicking with friends through suburban streets, Dale Jr. spent his atop a van, watching cars circle the track — and “The Last Great Colosseum” was one of his favorite places to do that.

 

“As a kid I loved coming here because we would just run from one end of the track to the other getting into whatever we could get into,” Earnhardt Jr. told the media on Friday at Bristol. “They used to park the comfort coach conversion vans in the corners. All the drivers would park theirs in the corners and we would just climb up on the back of them and watch practice.

 

“You were literally 30 feet from the cars when they were going by. In the race they would crash and roll down the banking feet from the bus. It was just the coolest thing as a kid to be able to be that close to the action and see the drivers in there working and turning the wheel and watch the cars literally work as they go through the corner and how the cars were handling. It was so much fun having that kind of vantage point.”

 

Junior has been an advocate of the racing at Bristol Motor Speedway for some time now, occasionally claiming it to be the best race track for attendees to become captivated by NASCAR.

 

“I’m very proud of this event,” Junior said. “I tell people all the time to come get tickets and watch this race and this is where you need to go if you want to get hooked.”

 

In 32 starts, Junior has seen Victory Lane once at Bristol, which came during 2004’s night race and was one of six wins (a career high) that year for him.

For Sunday’s Food City 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), Earnhardt Jr. will line up 20th in the field, on the same row as Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott (19th).

 

MORE: Junior’s Darlington scheme | No. 88 rides around Uptown Charlotte

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RELATED: Saturday’s race results | Watch the dramatic finish

 

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Kyle Busch said it would happen eventually, and eventually arrived Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion likely didn’t expect it to happen like this.

Busch had won four NASCAR XFINITY Series races this season, and Sprint Cup Series regulars had gone six-for-six entering the Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 at Bristol.

But after Busch and fellow Sprint Cup regular Kyle Larson chased one another lap after lap after lap around the high-banked half-mile track, it was series regular Erik Jones who collected the win and a $100,000 bonus from the series sponsor in its Dash 4 Cash program.

Busch had said earlier this season after a typically strong performance there was no doubt teammates Jones and Daniel Suarez would eventually make their way into Victory Lane. Jones had two series wins (earned in 2015) before Saturday; Suarez is looking his first series victory. Both finish consistently in the top five.

The issue for Busch at Bristol was the late restart, a three-lap dash after Ryan Reed and Mario Gosselin brought out the yellow on Lap 189 of 200.

Larson chalked up the loss to the restart as well, but blamed himself.

The Reed/Gosselin incident bled nine laps off the board and set up the three-lap dash. Not that more laps under green would have mattered, according to Busch, who led three times for 43 laps.

“Both restarts I had today were absolutely horrendous; both times I would go to the throttle and the engine would shut off and those guys were gone,” he said. “… I couldn’t keep a nose on their left-rear fender or anything.

“More laps obviously would have been better … but being on that inside lane is already a disadvantage.”

And that doesn’t bode well for Sunday’s Food City 500 Sprint Cup Series race (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), he said.

“It used to be a race track that you could race around three-wide and pass and work traffic really well and have some fun,” Busch said. “Now it’s just frustrating and aggravating.

“It will be the top lane tomorrow. … The race will be around the top and it will be the same frustrating single-file show tomorrow.”

Larson restarted for the final time in the outside lane, Busch on the inside. Jones, fourth on the restart, shot in front of Busch when the No. 18 Toyota stumbled, then raced side-by-side with Larson for the lead as they came to the white flag.

“Just did a really poor job the last couple of laps,” Larson said, “really disappointed in myself and probably not going to forget about this one for quite a while.”

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Practice 2 results

Denny Hamlin and Danica Patrick made contact during second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice Saturday morning, causing slight damage to their cars at Bristol Motor Speedway.
 
With roughly 12 minutes left in the 55-minute session, Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota closed on Patrick’s Stewart-Haas Racing No. 10 Chevrolet on the .533-mile track’s frontstretch. Hamlin dove to the inside in an attempt to clear Patrick’s car entering Turn 1, but ran out of room, pushing the right side of his car’s nose into her car’s left-rear fender.
 
Patrick said she tried to signal to Hamlin to help him pass by.
 
“I had just come out on tires,” said Patrick, who is set to start 33rd in Sunday’s Food City 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM). “They were cold and I wasn’t very good anyway, I was pretty loose. I came down the front straightaway and I put my finger out the window to point him by, but he hit me on entry. I don’t know if he … it looked like he came pretty close when he went to go to the inside, too.
 
“Man, I love Denny, but he makes a lot of mistakes behind me. I don’t know if he misjudged it or I was going slower than he thought, but I put my finger out the window and pointed him by. I had no intention to race him. I was not fast enough. I don’t know, but the guys are going to try and fix it.”
 
Hamlin said he didn’t see any indication from Patrick’s driver’s-side window.
 
“I didn’t see her finger,” said Hamlin, who qualified fourth for Sunday’s 500-lapper. “More than likely if she did, it was because I was on the outside of her on the straightaway, so I couldn’t see the left side of her car. I went to go low, but I don’t know whether she had stuff on her tires ’cause it looked like she was struggling and had stuff on her tires for a few laps there. I tried to go low and obviously we hung bumpers going into the corner.”
 
Both cars circled back to their pit stalls to allow their crews to assess the damage before Saturday’s final practice (11 a.m. ET, FS1).

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: How Dash 4 Cash works | Full D4C coverage


Heat race 1

Finish Start Car Driver
1 1 20 Erik Jones #
2 2 42 Kyle Larson(i)
3 3 18 Kyle Busch(i)
4 4 7 Justin Allgaier
5 5 33 Brandon Jones #
6 7 62 Brendan Gaughan
7 8 6 Darrell Wallace Jr
8 10 1 Elliott Sadler
9 11 16 Ryan Reed
10 9 48 Brennan Poole #
11 6 4 Ross Chastain
12 14 15 Jeff Green
13 15 24 Matt Tifft(i)
14 16 46 Brandon Gdovic
15 18 25 Harrison Rhodes
16 13 28 Dakoda Armstrong
17 17 52 Joey Gase
18 20 74 Mike Harmon
19 19 13 Timmy Hill(i)
20 12 10 Matt DiBenedetto(i)


Heat race 2

Finish Start Car Driver
1 1 2 Austin Dillon(i)
2 5 3 Ty Dillon
3 3 22 Joey Logano(i)
4 2 19 Daniel Suarez
5 6 88 Kevin Harvick(i)
6 4 98 Aric Almirola(i)
7 8 43 Jeb Burton
8 7 11 Blake Koch
9 11 51 Jeremy Clements
10 9 39 Ryan Sieg
11 10 90 Mario Gosselin
12 15 44 David Starr
13 13 01 Ryan Preece #
14 16 78 BJ McLeod #
15 18 0 Garrett Smithley #
16 19 97 Ryan Ellis
17 20 70 Derrike Cope
18 17 07 Ray Black Jr #
19 14 14 JJ Yeley
20 12 93 Josh Wise(i)
Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Practice 2 results | Final practice results

 

Denny Hamlin made a solid recovery from a collision in Saturday’s earlier practice session, setting the pace in final NASCAR Sprint Cup Series practice at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Hamlin, sporting repairs on the nose of his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota, logged a best lap of 126.129 mph on the .533-mile track. His car suffered slight right-front damage after making contact with Danica Patrick‘s No. 10 Chevrolet in Saturday’s earlier practice.

Sunoco Rookie of the Year points leader Chase Elliott snuck in the second-fastest lap in the closing minute of practice, turning a 125.823 mph speed in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet. Martin Truex Jr. landed the third-fastest lap (125.749 mph) in the Furniture Row Racing No. 78 Toyota.

 

Coors Light Pole winner Carl Edwards, Hamlin’s JGR teammate in the No. 19 Toyota, was fourth-fastest at 125.691 mph. Edwards, who topped Sprint Cup qualifying for the second straight week, will start first in Sunday’s Food City 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Kyle Busch, winner of the last four NASCAR national series events, completed the top five in another Joe Gibbs-owned entry. His No. 18 Toyota was fifth-fastest at 125.395 mph in the 55-minute session.

Patrick, the other driver involved in the early-session altercation, also returned to the track after repairs, but brushed the outside wall in the early stages of final practice. She wound up 30th in the 40-car field on the final leaderboard.


RELATED: Patrick, Hamlin collide in opening practice

Kyle Busch fastest in early Saturday session

 

Kyle Busch kept up his show of speed in Saturday morning practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, topping the leaderboard at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Busch powered the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota to a best lap of 126.370 mph in the 55-minute session. The reigning Sprint Cup champ will start fifth in Sunday’s Food City 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM), the eighth of 36 points-paying races for the series this year.

Sunoco Rookie of the Year points leader Chase Elliott was second-fastest at 126.253 mph in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 Chevrolet. Kurt Busch wound up third-best (126.137 mph) in the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 Chevy.

Aric Almirola (125.988 mph) turned the fourth-fastest lap around the .533-mile track in the Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 Ford. Coors Light Pole Award winner Carl Edwards and Joey Logano, a two-time Bristol winner, tied for the fifth-fastest lap at 125.972 mph.

Denny Hamlin and Danica Patrick made slight contact with approximately 12 minutes remaining in the 55-minute practice. Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota closed rapidly on Patrick’s No. 10 Chevrolet entering Turn 1, with the right-front corner of Hamlin’s car crunching into the left-rear fender of Patrick’s.

Defending race winner Matt Kenseth landed the eighth-fastest lap.

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Race results | Updated series standings

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Erik Jones‘ third NASCAR XFINITY Series victory was a real triple play.
 
In the series’ new Dash 4 Cash format featuring two heat races and a main event, Jones took advantage of a restart with three laps left in Saturday’s Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 and 1) won the race, 2) earned the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus and 3) stopped Joe Gibbs Racing teammate and race runner-up Kyle Busch’s streak of four straight NASCAR national series victories.
 
Jones, the pole winner, restarted fourth on the final restart and charged into second place behind leader Kyle Larson when Busch’s No. 18 Toyota hesitated trying to pick up power in the bottom lane. Larson left the preferred top lane open through Turns 3 and 4 and Jones took advantage, taking the lead from Larson with two laps left.
 
Busch followed his teammate into second place, but couldn’t keep up with Jones on the final lap, trailing the No. 20 JGR Toyota by .418 seconds at the finish line. The runner-up result ended Busch’s prospects for a record third straight NASCAR weekend sweep.
 
“We had a really good restart, and Kyle (Larson) just left the top open,” said an elated Jones, who was battling teammate and eventual sixth-place finisher Daniel Suárez for the Dash 4 Cash bonus, a prize available only to drivers competing for the XFINITY Series championship.
 
Suárez had the misfortune to restart third on the bottom on Lap 198 and got bottled up behind Busch as Jones charged forward in pursuit of Larson. That allowed Austin Dillon to take fourth and Justin Allgaier fifth at the finish.
 
It’s doubtful Jones could have scripted a more satisfactory ending if he’d written it himself.
 
“I figured at some point in the year we could get a win when those guys weren’t in the field, but it would be a tall task with them in the field,” said Jones, who picked up his third victory in the series and his first this year.
 
“Here at Bristol, for those two guys, this is one of their best tracks. I’m just so excited and you can tell – I’m out of breath. I wasn’t working that hard. Just so excited about the win and to be here in Victory Lane and beat those guys. This is a really big day for us.”
 
Though Jones was the winner, most of the race was a battle for the top spot between Larson, who led 94 laps, and Busch, who led 43.
 
“The two cars that were the class of the field today didn’t win – oh, well,” Busch said. “It’s a great day for Erik Jones. He certainly stole one today. He didn’t out-race the two Kyles up front, but he certainly did in the final laps that counted.”
 
Larson spent most of his time in the post-race beating himself up for leaving the top lane open for the opportunistic Jones.
 
“I just did a really bad job on that restart – really bad,” Larson said. “I knew I gave it away. I’m really disappointed in myself. I just ran half a groove too low through (Turns) 3 and 4.”
 
The two 50-lap heat races produced a pair of wire-to-wire winners, Jones and Austin Dillon, and no cautions. But the heats did establish the starting order for the 200-lap main event, as well as identify the four eligible Dash 4 Cash competitors.
 
Jones, Allgaier (fourth in the first heat), Ty Dillon (second to his brother in the second heat) and Suárez (fourth in the second heat) took the green as the only drivers competing for the $100,000 bonus.
 
Any driver who wins two of the four Dash 4 Cash bonuses qualifies for the Chase, but as the first XFINITY regular to win a race this year, Jones won’t need the extra help.