Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Heated, frustrated, annoyed. Christopher Bell was simply tired of losing.

Six days after a rare radio eruption following the NASCAR Cup Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway, Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens found themselves back in Victory Lane for the first time since March, winning the Round of 16 finale at Bristol Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

The boil-over at Gateway led to a midweek conversation between the driver and crew chief who have worked in tandem since 2021. Now in their fifth year together, the trust they’ve built in one another and the professionalism each exudes allowed for a quick dispatch of any hard feelings and made room for flawless execution in the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol. The result? Bell’s first points-paying win since Phoenix Raceway on March 9, over six months ago.

“I think it goes to show that any week, it can happen,” Bell said. “I got really frustrated last week because we had an opportunity to win and we didn’t win. We’ve had several opportunities to win throughout the summer and we didn’t win.

“Every week, every week we can do it. And Adam, while I was frustrated with the calls last week, he nailed every call this week, and we ended up in Victory Lane. You’re going to have that. Tonight was just a perfect example of everybody doing the right things and not making mistakes and keeping us in it. We got the fruit of that.”

After Gateway, Bell shouted “I’m over it!” over his radio after finishing seventh with what he deemed the best car on track. The tone over the radio after Bristol was, of course, notably more positive.

“Way to never give up despite a little adversity this year in these playoffs,” Stevens keyed after the checkered flag. “Proud of you, Bell.”

“I’m proud of you boys,” Bell said. “Excellent, excellent job.”

The evolution of Saturday’s race required strong trust and communication between Bell, Stevens and spotter Tab Boyd. With a new, softer right-side tire from Goodyear, higher wear arose throughout the race than was originally anticipated after Friday’s lone practice session.

ANALYSIS: New tire tests Cup’s best in Bristol finale

Christopher Bell and Brad Keselowski race into Turn 3 at Bristol.
Alejandro Alvarez | NASCAR Digital Media

Once Bell’s approach needed to change, so too did Stevens’ atop the pit box.

“It’s definitely a lot of conversation between you and your crew chief and just asking him, hey, what is the plan here?” Bell said. “There are so many people on different strategies and different plans. We had a 125-lap stage, and all of sudden, people are having tire issues at like Lap 30. Are we going to two-stop this? Are we going to one-stop this? Do you need me to go hard? How long do I have to make these tires last?”

Together, the duo combined to produce all the right answers. The race ultimately came down to a restart with four laps remaining. Bell lined up in third place — second on the bottom lane behind Zane Smith — and was able to charge through the bottom lane in a three-wide pass on Smith and Carson Hocevar and held off a late charge from Brad Keselowski, who attempted a bump-and-run pass in the final set of corners.

Bell’s victory marks the 13th of his Cup Series tenure. It’s his fourth of the season, tying him with Shane van Gisbergen for the second-most wins of 2025. And while Bell’s elation was obvious Saturday night, so too was his unrelenting dissatisfaction.

“Winning, that’s what makes your career. That’s what makes your status in the industry,” he said. “That’s literally everything. In order to make it in this sport, you have to win. Frankly, I haven’t won enough. That’s what, win 13 in my career? That’s not enough, and I need to win more. But it starts with — every win gets it up a tick so I’m glad we got this one tonight.”

As the head of this team’s leadership, Stevens plays a key role in tempering those eager expectations, no matter how realistic they are.

“You don’t have a race, especially like this or really any race, without some circumstances affecting the outcome,” Stevens said. “My point to him last week was whatever gap there is between where we are and where we want to be, it might feel big, but it’s not big. It just takes a couple pieces of the puzzle — a right restart here and there, a little better qualifying — and we can have nights like this.”

Now, the No. 20 team is onto the Round of 12 in the Cup Series Playoffs, completing Joe Gibbs Racing’s three-race sweep of the opening Round of 16 with three different drivers. Its goal is to win a championship, which would mark Bell’s first and Stevens’ third in their third Championship 4 appearance in four years. They have to get there first, but Bell has won the last two spring races at Phoenix.

But gone are the frustrations of Gateway. Back are the good vibes after Bristol.

“Winning fixes everything, that’s for sure,” Bell said.

Posted on by Staff Report

After 500 laps at Bristol Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs field is four drivers lighter.

An intriguing Saturday evening of high stakes and high tire wear produced a compelling Bass Pro Shops Night Race, the elimination event in the postseason’s Round of 16. The dozen who move on will grid back up for the playoffs’ next phase, which begins a week from Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

WINNER

Christopher Bell, No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Bell got the best of Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar on the final restart, then fended off Brad Keselowski to lead the last four laps of his fourth win of the Cup Series season. Bell was already in a reasonably safe zone for making the Round of 12 on points, but his Bristol victory gave him an automatic spot, making the math a moot point. The triumph also made it a clean sweep of the opening round for Joe Gibbs Racing, which has won the postseason’s first three races.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol

WHO’S HOT?

Ryan Blaney, No. 12 Team Penske Ford. No driver earned more points than Blaney on Saturday night, thanks to his second straight fourth-place result and first- and second-place finishes at the stages. The former Cup Series champ led three times for 30 laps in his 52-point night, and his No. 12 team was able to sidestep many of the tire issues that short-circuited his fellow competitors. Overall, Blaney has been piping hot in recent weeks, and Saturday’s outcome at Bristol marked his eighth top-10 finish in the last nine races.

Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Briscoe managed quite the rally from an uncharacteristically poor qualifying effort, a season-worst 31st for the driver who leads the series with six pole positions. He ended up leading 127 laps — second only to JGR teammate Ty Gibbs’ 201 — and kept his postseason momentum rolling, even after an ill-timed final caution flag trapped him on pit road and cost him a better finish. Briscoe had already advanced to the Round of 12 on the strength of his convincing Southern 500 victory, but he now has three straight top-10 results as the playoffs enter its next chapter.

WHO’S NOT?

Shane van Gisbergen, No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet. SVG’s oval-track growing pains had an untimely achy night at Bristol, where the affable rookie dipped out of the playoff picture with a 26th-place finish, three laps off the pace. Van Gisbergen was just minus-15 below the elimination line entering the 500-lapper, but lost more ground as the night went on, with a pair of midrace spins just 31 laps apart slowing his progress. A prime opportunity to regroup comes in the next round, where SVG could play the role of playoff spoiler in the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval event Oct. 5.

Josh Berry, No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford. The worst-case scenario spelled an early end to Berry’s brief playoff run, with three Round of 16 races resulting in last-place finishes. Saturday night’s early ouster was a fire that erupted from the No. 21 Ford’s right-front, filling the car’s cockpit with smoke and ending his race after just 75 laps. “We’ll try and win some races here coming up in this stretch,” Berry said, looking at the seven races left on the 2025 calendar. Among those is Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Oct. 12), where he is the Cup Series’ most recent winner.

BUBBLE WATCH

RANKDRIVER+/-
4Christopher Bell+20
5Ryan Blaney+19
6Chase Briscoe+10
7Chase Elliott+5
8Bubba Wallace+1
CUTLINE
9Austin Cindric-1
10Joey Logano-2
11Ross Chastain-2
12Tyler Reddick-3

QUOTABLE

“Crazy race. I didn’t have that one on the bingo card going into tonight. I don’t know if anyone did — truthfully. I don’t know. It was wild. I don’t know – I’m still processing what we just did.” — Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, after tire management emerged early as a crucial strategy element.

NEXT RACE

The Cup Series Playoffs re-racks next weekend with the circuit’s lone stop this year at New Hampshire, which returns to the postseason rotation for the first time since 2017. Toyota drivers have won the last three races at the 1.058-mile Loudon oval, including two by the series’ most recent winner — Bell. He’ll be among the 12 remaining title-eligible aces aiming to get the next round of the playoffs off to a substantial start, carrying his Bristol sword into the fray.

Posted on by Cameron Richardson

BRISTOL, Tenn. — “If anybody said that they knew what was gonna happen tonight, we were all lying to you. We all got it wrong.”

After sweating out a curveball of a Bristol Night Race, Alex Bowman nearly got it right with a walk-off to advance in the Cup Series Playoffs.

However, when the checkered flag waved after 500 rip-roaring laps, Austin Cindric was the last driver to advance to the postseason’s Round of 12 while Bowman was the first driver eliminated, 10 points shy.

The driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was in one of the best positions to win the race in the latter half, maintaining track position despite a Stage 1 spin. However, a late caution for Bubba Wallace’s Turn 2 incident bunched the field for one more restart with four laps to go. Restarts were the Achilles’ Heel for Bowman all race long and ultimately cost him a berth to the second round as he dropped from third to eighth at the finish.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

“I thought our car, when we had some green-flag running, was really good,” Bowman said. “It just cycled really poorly for restarts. I would drive off into Turn 1 and just hope to make the corner. For whatever reason, it just wouldn’t take off. Then after five laps or so, go again. I couldn’t figure it out if it was something that I was doing, not cleaning the tires off enough, but I felt like I was cleaning the tires off too much at some point. I don’t really know what we lacked there.”

Bowman flirted with the cutline on points late as attrition became rampant among playoff drivers.

Most notably, his Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott crashed in the final stage after contact with John Hunter Nemechek. But Elliott was spared a shock upset after fellow playoff contender Austin Cindric suffered a fire in the right-front of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford that forced Cindric to pit road.

As the fire continued and Cindric’s cockpit began filling with smoke, the No. 2 pit crew managed to put on a scuff right-front tire amid the blaze and kept Cindric in the race. It ultimately paid off in Cindric’s favor as he advanced — willing his way to the finish line four laps down in 30th.

“I was gonna wait till I saw a color other than smokey gray,” Cindric said about staying in his hot rod. “I don’t think the stress was there. I think everyone was pretty well prepared with the transfer of information once I got back out on track and with a scuff right-front tire, old-as-hell left-side tires and an old right-rear tire. I got a handle on the car and got all the fire-extinguisher stuff burned off the tires and dripping everywhere, and was able to finish the race. Hectic, and I’m sure it was crazy for a little while on paper.”

Saturday night was a summarization of a difficult 2025 for Bowman, who remains winless since his Chicago Street Course triumph in 2024, and to put the icing on the cake, he struggled to hear his crew chief and spotter all night amid the discombobulation on track.

“My radio didn’t work all night, so I didn’t have a clue what was going on,” Bowman added. “I didn’t know who we were racing on green-flag cycles. I couldn’t hear hardly anything. That was frustrating, but honestly, it didn’t really matter.”

Cindric joins his teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano in the Round of 12, while Bowman was the only Hendrick driver eliminated in the opening playoff round.

Also eliminated after Bristol were Austin Dillon (minus-14), four-time 2025 race winner Shane van Gisbergen (minus-16) and Josh Berry (minus-56).

“Everyone kept their cool,” Cindric said. “Credit to all the guys from the top down, transferring information, being prepared, not getting any penalties for going over the wall. I mean everything that went on there and still being able to come out and only lose a handful of laps and be in the position we needed to. Whenever we do great things, we do it as a team.”

“A top 10 with stage points and a solid day — the guys on pit road did a really good job,” said Bowman, who swapped pit crews with the No. 77 Spire Motorsports team for Bristol. “I’m sure the guys on the 77 did a good job, too. Those guys are like family, so it’s been a rough week. Just got to keep digging, right? There’s a lot of points we can still score. We can still finish way better than wherever we’re at in points right now.”

Posted on by Staff Report

In a topsy-turvy Saturday night showdown, four drivers were cut from championship eligibility in the first elimination of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Christopher Bell survived a 500-lap gauntlet with significant tire wear — and a last-lap bump from Brad Keselowski — to win Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Bell was among the dozen drivers advancing to the Playoffs’ Round of 12, the next three-race portion of the 10-race postseason.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol

The clock ran out on the title hopes of Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen and Josh Berry. All four entered the Round of 16 below the provisional elimination line.

Berry was the first to be cut, stopping after 75 laps when flames from the right-front filled the cockpit of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford. He ended the three Round of 16 races with three last-place finishes. Van Gisbergen spun twice, and he, Bowman and Dillon were unable to offset their points deficit on Bristol’s high banks, while Austin Cindric held on for the final Round of 12 berth.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin had already advanced with victories earlier in the round; Briscoe won the playoff opener at Darlington Raceway and Hamlin prevailed at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

Three more drivers locked up their spots in the next round with mid-race clinchers at Bristol. Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace — the top points-earners without wins after two Round of 16 races — advanced at the end of Stage 1. Ryan Blaney sealed a Round of 12 berth after the second stage.

Below is the list of drivers for the Round of 12, with order based on the reset points.

NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 12 field:

— 1. Denny Hamlin, No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, 3,034 points
— 2. William Byron, No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, 3,032 points
— 3. Kyle Larson, No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, 3,032 points
— 4. Christopher Bell, No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, 3,028 points
— 5. Ryan Blaney, No. 12 Team Penske Ford, 3,027 points
— 6. Chase Briscoe, No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, 3,018 points
— 7. Chase Elliott, No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, 3,013 points
— 8. Bubba Wallace, No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, 3,009 points
— 9. Austin Cindric, No. 2 Team Penske Ford, 3,008 points
— 10. Joey Logano, No. 22 Team Penske Ford, 3,007 points
— 11. Ross Chastain, No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, 3,007 points
— 12. Tyler Reddick, No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota, 3,006 points

Posted on by Reid Spencer

BRISTOL, Tenn. — With a charge to the lead from fifth place with four laps left in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Christopher Bell kept Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota perfect in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

Bell survived a hard, square shot to his rear bumper from Brad Keselowski in the final corner and steered straight to the finish line, 0.343 seconds ahead of the Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing co-owner and driver.

Joining JGR teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin as winners in the Round of 16, Bell advanced to the Round of 12, which begins Sept. 21 at one of his best tracks, New Hampshire Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol

The race marked the end of the playoffs for the four drivers who came to “Thunder Valley” below the elimination line — Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen and Josh Berry.

Of the four, only Bowman made a significant charge, finishing 10 points below Austin Cindric, the final Round of 12 qualifier.

Six days after complaining bitterly about strategy in a seventh-place finish at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, Bell was back on top, scoring his fourth victory of the season, his first at Bristol and the 13th of his career.

On fresh right-side tires after a pit stop on Lap 491, the driver of No. 20 Camry took the lead from fifth on Lap 497 of 500 and kept Keselowski, on four new tires, at bay for the duration, even though Keselowski got to Bell’s rear bumper on the final circuit.

With new, softer right-side tires supplied by Goodyear for the race, the extent of tire wear was a shock to the drivers and crew chiefs.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, I was nervous on the two (tires),” Bell said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to be on the bottom or the top, and whenever Brad picked the top (lane) didn’t really give me an option. I had to pick the bottom.

“All night long, I don’t know, old tires just really, really pushed up in the middle of the corners, so I was hoping that those guys (starting ahead of him) on old tires would push up, and they did. They did, and I was able to get by or get underneath them.

“It wasn’t pretty there at the end, but we got her done.”

WATCH: Stevens ‘would’ve bet my house’ on a normal Bristol race

Keselowski rued his pick of the top lane for the final restart.

“Just the story of our season, just a 50/50 shot on the restart and I got the lane that couldn’t launch,” Keselowski said. “Just frustrating. We had a great car, great strategy, put ourselves in position to, if not win, at least have a really, really solid day, and on that last restart, (we) just rolled the dice and didn’t get anything good.”

Bell’s teammate, Ty Gibbs, led a race-high 201 laps, but overshot pit road on the last green-flag stop and finished 10th. Briscoe was out front for 127 laps and finished ninth after a late green-flag stop for fresh tires.

Non-playoff driver Zane Smith ran third, followed by Team Penske title contenders Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano. Part-timer Corey Heim scored a career-best sixth, followed by non-playoff driver Carson Hocevar and Bowman.

For practical purposes, most of the Round of 16 eliminations were settled early. On Lap 75, Josh Berry brought his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford to pit road with smoke from the right-front wheel well filling the cockpit.

Berry climbed from the car, finishing last for the third straight event, out of the race and out of the playoffs.

“It’s hard to put into words, but I’d be way more disappointed if we just ran like crap for three weeks,” said Berry, who had qualified 10th and moved forward from his starting spot. “We’ve been up front. We’ve qualified well. We had the issue at Darlington, bottoming out. Last week, we got clipped by the 9 (Chase Elliott), and then tonight the car catches on fire…

“Honestly, I think the way that was playing out, we would have 100 percent had a chance to win tonight.”

By the time Berry exited, Austin Dillon, who entered the race 11 points below the cutline, already had experienced severe cording of his right-side tires. Dillon pitted on Lap 28 and compounded his issues with a pit-road speeding penalty.

Dillon was 30th at the end of Stage 1, the last driver one lap down, with little hope of remaining in the playoffs. By the end of Stage 2, he was two laps down in 33rd. Dillon finished 28th, missing the Round of 12 by 14 points.

Shane van Gisbergen, 15 points down at the start of the race, steadily lost ground throughout the first two stages. The final blow for the New Zealander was a spin in Turn 4 after a bump from William Byron.

Another spin and a 26th-place finish left the Sunoco rookie 16 points behind Cindric in his first trip to the postseason.

SHOP: Christopher Bell winner gear

Of the drivers who started below the cutline, only Bowman mounted a concerted threat. Recovering from a spin on Lap 100, the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet surged forward on new tires and finished third behind Gibbs and Ryan Blaney in Stage 2.

Bowman had come to Bristol 35 points down, but with the eight points he collected in the second stage, he moved to 11 points behind Ross Chastain for the final transfer spot into the Round of 12 for the start of the final stage.

Chastain recovered a lost lap and finished 19th, preserving his berth in the Round of 12, but Cindric had a close call when his right-front wheel well started spewing flames on Lap 457. Cindric lost five laps on pit road, as Bowman closed with a point of the transfer spot, but the gap widened in the closing laps.

Chase Elliott crashed on Lap 311 after contact with John Hunter Nemechek’s Toyota and finished 38th, but the Hendrick driver had enough of a cushion to move on to the Round of 12.

Other drivers advancing to the next playoff round on points were Blaney, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Logano.

NOTE: Post-race inspection in the Cup Series garage concluded without issue, confirming Bell as the winner. No cars will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina.

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Goodyear tires mattered in a big way Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.

A new, softer right-side tire was brought to “Last Great Colosseum” in hopes the rubber would wear quicker, putting the outcome of the race in the drivers’ and teams’ hands as they had to make their allotted sets of tires last.

Mission accomplished.

RELATED: Race results | Round of 12 is set

The Bass Pro Shops Night Race featured 36 lead changes — third-most all-time at Bristol — in addition to 14 caution periods — the most since 2020.

“The tire worked,” runner-up Brad Keselowski said.

But how did we get here?

Certainly, a softer compound makes the goal of more tire wear more attainable. But in Friday’s practice, most drivers were able to make runs upward of 60 consecutive laps with temperatures hovering near 80 degrees. On Saturday night, with ambient temps in the high 60s when the green flag waved, the cooler track surface became the perfect breeding ground for tire degradation — just like the March 2024 Bristol race that first brought high tire wear into focus.

“The temperature dropped to the threshold and we got a tire-wear race,” Keselowski said. “It’s so freaking … I don’t know. There’s some scientists somewhere that could have, a big study on this one – how, like, a five-degree swing of track temp changes it so dramatically.

“But I thought it was actually a really good race because of the tire wear. The bottom was dominant. A lot of bump-and-run passes. It felt like Bristol from 1995 in that regard.”

Goodyear officials concurred with Keselowski’s observation.

“The temperatures have gotten really cool right now,” Justin Fantozzi, Goodyear’s Global Race Tire Operations Manager, said. “As that temperature has dropped, it’s returned about what we saw in the spring 18 months ago. So the tire is behaving exactly like it should.”

Keselowski settled for second behind Christopher Bell after a shot to his rear bumper entering Turn 3 wasn’t enough to move Bell. Bell said Saturday’s race felt like a carbon copy of the March 2024 event, an event in which he finished 10th.

“Honestly, I thought it was identical. It was the exact same,” Bell said. “I know that the tire that we ran today I think was softer or was supposed to induce more wear than what the tire was that day in 2024. But it felt the exact same, and I thought it raced the exact same.”

His crew chief, Adam Stevens, was certain Saturday’s race would have played out more like the last two Bristol races, in which track position reigned supreme and tire wear didn’t come into play.

“I would have bet my house that it was going to be a normal Bristol race,” Stevens said. “It was about Lap 25, 26 when they were going full tilt — 15.90 (seconds), 16-flat on that first run that guys really started slipping and sliding and coming in way early with no rubber left on their tires.

“I think Bell mentioned it about Lap 27. But he had gone so hard so early that we weren’t able to stretch it as long as other guys, and that’s what got us a lap down early.”

The ability to react in an instant to the pop-up tire issues was a critical factor in who was successful when it mattered most in Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs event, the elimination race of the Round of 16.

Ryan Blaney finished fourth in the No. 12 Ford after winning Stage 1 and placing second in Stage 2. Atop the pit box, crew chief Jonathan Hassler was responsible for delivering Blaney the proper information on how to manage his tires throughout the course of the event.

“He always has a feel for the balance of the car,” Hassler told NASCAR.com. “But when you’re punishing one tire, the good drivers definitely know what tire they’re hurting and to what extent. And we definitely let him know how long the tires are lasting each run, and he can kind of adapt and choose how hard to push them over time.”

Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott crashed out at Lap 310, prompting the 10th caution of the evening. But before that, Elliott found himself on opposite ends of the running order — at times contending at the front of the field, at others navigating heavy traffic from the rear. Those situations required different approaches behind the wheel due to the increased tire wear.

“I don’t know that it forced you to change your style as much as just where you were running and how much pace you were pushing,” Elliott said. “We were in such a terrible position getting trapped a lap down there early. We were probably a little late to realize that we needed to stop.

“But on the same token, if it goes green, it probably works out OK for us. So yeah, I got trapped a lap down, and being in the back of the pack versus being up front, certainly there was a big difference in how I was driving the car, and we were working on making our balance suit being out front, and it was slowly getting better.”

MORE: At-track photos: Bristol

The 2020 Cup Series champion welcomed the change in tire, but he also cautioned that what we saw shouldn’t always be the expectation if this same tire package is brought back to Bristol moving forward.

“My quick thought of the situation,” Elliott said, “is if you give these teams an opportunity to set the cars up knowing that the tire wear was going to be this high, I think you would probably see an entirely different race. So let’s not blame the tire yet.”

The increase in wear was so severe from Friday’s practice that Goodyear ultimately allotted teams one additional set of tires midway through the event.

Ryan Bergenty, crew chief of third-place finisher Zane Smith, told NASCAR.com that the addition was “darn near 100% necessary.” Hassler wasn’t as close to that 100% mark but understood the case for it.

“I think we could have made it work without that set,” Hassler said. “It probably would have gotten ugly for a handful of guys, so it certainly alleviated a little bit of the pain, and NASCAR did a decent job controlling the situation. We definitely got extra pace laps here and there to kind of click off some laps.”

If anything is certain after Saturday’s race, it’s that extreme tire wear contributed to a compelling race that tested man and machine. The question is whether the weather will cooperate every time NASCAR heads to Bristol like it did on Saturday night.

Posted on by Staff Report

The NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Craftsman Truck Series head to Tennessee this weekend for some tripleheader playoff action at Bristol Motor Speedway. The Cup Series Playoffs Round of 16 concludes on Saturday night, while the Xfinity Series begins its 12-driver postseason and the Truck Series rolls on with its Round of 10. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.

RELATED: Full weekend schedule | TV listings

NASCAR Cup Series

Race day: Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Eleven sets for the weekend (nine new race sets, one set transferred from qualifying and one for practice). Teams are also allowed four wet-weather sets.

Entry List
Qualifying Order
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Qualifying Results
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

NASCAR Xfinity Series

Race day: Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET on The CW. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Five sets for the weekend (three new race sets, one set transferred from qualifying and one for practice). Teams are also allowed three wet-weather sets.

Entry List
Qualifying Order
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Qualifying Results
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series

Race day: Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on FS1. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.

Tires: Four sets for the weekend (two new race sets, one set transferred from qualifying and one for practice). Teams are also allowed three wet-weather sets.

Entry List
Qualifying Order
Practice Results
Practice Lap Averages
Practice Lap Times
Qualifying Results
Pit Stalls
Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 Results
Race Results

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Josh Berry’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs ended in flames at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night.

The No. 21 Ford started showing flames on the right front on Lap 74 and brought his car to pit road two laps later. Smoke billowed into the cockpit, forcing Berry from the car with help from his crewmen as safety personnel worked to extinguish the fire.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Bristol

Berry entered the Bass Pro Shops Night Race 45 points below the cutline, likely needing to win to advance to the Round of 12. He will end the Round of 16 with three consecutive last-place finishes.

Teams encountered high tire wear with the addition of a new right-side tire, adding to the nuance of Saturday’s cutoff race. The No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team believes the excess rubber that came off those tires contributed to the mechanical failure Berry experienced Saturday night.

“The best that I can tell is it was the rubber buildup on the header (that caused the fire), and then that just spread to the rocker (panel),” crew chief Miles Stanley told NASCAR.com. “And once the rocker catches, you’re kind of hosed. I didn’t really see how quickly it progressed; it seemed to progress really quickly. And then, like I said, once the rocker was on fire, there really wasn’t a whole lot we could do.”

Berry said the issue began in earnest about seven laps before he brought the car to the team’s attention.

“We started getting some smoke in the cockpit,” Berry said, “and then the longer I went, the darker the smoke got. And obviously by the time we got on pit road, it was completely black smoke. So yeah, obviously something caught on fire.”

The flames never breached the cockpit, Berry explained, but the plumes of smoke became too much to endure.

“A few things happened there,” Stanley said. “Once we got in the box, we tried to get the road crew out to get the fire out on the right side, and then the right-side window got taken out. And when that got taken out, a bunch of oxygen came in, and then all the foam went up (in flames).”

The high tire wear is exactly what Berry believed could have played into his hands. A win in Saturday’s race would have propelled the sophomore driver into the Round of 12 after a dismal start to his first postseason appearance. Instead, he was sidelined before the conclusion of Stage 1.

“Just disappointing, again,” Berry said. “Our car was really good. That was going to fall right into our wheelhouse, I feel like, to have a really good night. We were able to make it pretty long on that first set (of tires) and we were going to be set up in a really good spot, I think.

“This one’s going to be hard to watch because it looks like it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

Even though the tire wear would have played into his favor, Berry admitted that “it definitely caught me off guard.”

“I was fully convinced it was going to be hammer down,” Berry said. “But I could tell probably 15 or 20 laps into the race, we were running like 16.10s (lap times). And you could see some people start coming back to us, and you can tell, right? I mean, the pace yesterday in practice was 15.70s, 15.80s, hammer down the whole time.

“And when we’re in the 16s that quick, I was like, you can tell that’s going on. You can see the marbles start developing, and yeah, man, it’s crazy.”

Saturday night marked three consecutive weeks of last-place finishes for Berry after early-race mishaps. The playoffs began at Darlington Raceway, where after qualifying third, Berry’s car bottomed out through Turn 2 on the opening lap and spun out, sending him into the garage for repairs. Last week at World Wide Technology Raceway, the No. 21 car went spinning at Lap 36 after errant contact by Chase Elliott. How does Berry move forward after three weeks of worst-case scenarios competitively?

“Better than three last-place finishes,” Berry smiled. “Len (Wood, team co-owner and chief operating officer) was saying before the race he never thought they had two in a row and now we’ve got three in a row.”

If there’s solace to be found, it’s that all three incidents were largely out of Berry’s control. The outcomes have been miserable in recent weeks, but Stanley remains optimistic heading into the final seven races of the season, which includes a stop at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he, Berry and Co. won in March.

“We just keep building fast cars and bring fast cars to the race track, and that’s all we can do,” Stanley said. “We’ll try and win some races here coming up in this stretch.”

Posted on by PJ Walsh

NASCAR returns to Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday for one of my favorite races of the year: the Bass Pro Shops Night Race (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

The dominant story line for teams, drivers and even bettors will be whether there will be significant tire wear in tonight’s race.

Goodyear is bringing a softer right-side tire for this event in an attempt to accelerate tire wear and put more emphasis on drivers to “save their stuff” and increase passing.

Unfortunately, from what we learned at Bristol in the spring, it’s tough to predict just how significantly tires will wear until the race itself.

With that said, drivers and teams did not see much falloff during Friday’s practice sessions, so the expectation is that tire wear won’t be much of an issue tonight.

Now that we have data to examine, I’m betting on two outright winners for Bristol, as well as a live +2700 long-shot pick to score a surprising top-1o finish.

NASCAR Odds, 3 Best Bet Picks for Bristol

*Odds as of Saturday morning

NASCAR odds from BetMGM show Kyle Larson as the race favorite at bet365 with +300 odds, followed by Ryan Blaney (+350), Denny Hamlin (+450), Christopher Bell (+100) and William Byron (+1300).

My first bet comes from this group of favorites.

When the Cup Series visits Bristol, my mind immediately goes to Hamlin.

Hamlin, who qualified a very solid sixth for today’s race, has finishes of ninth, first, first, fourth and second at Bristol since NASCAR introduced the Next Gen car.

Pretty good.

Throw in the fact that the No. 11 Toyota was one of the fastest long-run cars in practice and we have a driver capable of dominating tonight’s race at a palatable +550 price tag.

NASCAR Pick: Denny Hamlin (+550) to Win — FanDuel

We move immediately to Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Ty Gibbs, for my second Bristol bet for many of the same reasons.

Gibbs qualified very well — fourth — at a circuit where track position is imperative, was lightning quick in practice and has an impressive history in Thunder Valley.

No, Gibbs has not won here — he still is searching for his first Cup Series win — but finishes of fifth, ninth, 15th and third show he can certainly be in the mix if the car is right.

NASCAR Pick: Ty Gibbs (+1500) to Win — DraftKings

Now for a long-shot-pick from another Toyota.

Riley Herbst was just 29th fastest in qualifying, putting him at disadvantage to start tonight’s race.

However, the 23XI Racing driver showed very impressive race pace in practice, ranking fifth in 20-lap average and second in 25-lap average.

The biggest threat to Herbst is going a lap down early while stuck at the back of the field, but if he can leverage his car’s long-run speed to maneuver forward and not get trapped a lap down at the stage breaks, this bet has serious upside at +2700 odds.

NASCAR Pick: Riley Herbst (+2700) for a top-10 Finish — FanDuel

Posted on by Zach Sturniolo

BRISTOL, Tenn. — For the first time in 41 days, Connor Zilisch ran a NASCAR Xfinity Series race and didn’t win.

While Aric Almirola sailed to Victory Lane in Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Zilisch was forced to settle for fifth place in the opening race of the Xfinity Series Playoffs, snapping his four-race winning streak. Zilisch had won seven of the eight races prior to Friday’s event at Bristol.

RELATED: Race results | At-track photos

After leading a race-best 98 laps, Zilisch led a handful of competitors to pit road with just 35 laps remaining after a caution flag waved for Carson Ware’s spin at Lap 263. Eight cars stayed on track to capitalize on track position with older tires, but Zilisch couldn’t overcome the traffic and ultimately worked his way back to fifth by the time the checkered flag waved.

“It’s part of it,” Zilisch said. “We had a winning car today, and we were in the right position. But those late-race calls to pit or not when you’re the leader are just really tough. … Those decisions are tough. And we do our best to make the right calls, but you know, it’s not easy to always make the right calls. We’ll learn from it and move on to Kansas.”

Zilisch may not have celebrated a win this time, but his 52 points earned tied Almirola’s total for the most points accumulated Friday night, in part thanks to a Stage 2 victory and a runner-up effort in Stage 1.

“I feel like we got a lot of points today and built our buffer to the cutline, got a stage win, so overall, good day,” Zilisch said.

The No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet had been on an incredible run, seemingly unstoppable at times over the last eight races. Zilisch’s four-race winning streak was improbable in itself. It began at Watkins Glen International on Aug. 9, when he slipped from his car’s window in a scary Victory Lane fall that resulted in a broken collarbone. Without missing a race, he returned for the Xfinity Series’ next event at Daytona International Speedway on Aug. 22 and started the event before Parker Kligerman subbed in and subsequently won — a victory credited in the scorebook to Zilisch himself.

He followed those two triumphs with respective wins at Portland International Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway, two completely unique tracks at which he had never raced.

The 19-year-old seemed poised to do it all over again Friday at Bristol, but fate had something else in mind at the 0.533-mile bullring.

“When you’re upset with fifth place, you’re doing something right,” Zilisch said. “We’ll keep building on it and get better in Kansas. But I know that we are heading in the right direction as a team and things are looking upward. And we’re leading lots of laps and putting ourselves in position.”