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The NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series all race at Bristol Motor Speedway this week. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.
Tires were the name of the game in NASCAR Cup Series practice for Sunday’s Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET, FS1) at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Like last year’s Food City 500, practice indicated that drivers will have to manage tires again over the 500 laps, so it would behoove us to look at drivers’ lap times later in their practice runs to see who looked solid as the tires started to get worn.
And based on NASCAR odds for Bristol, there’s a hidden surprise among the field.
Despite one driver’s massive upside, he’s being overlooked in NASCAR odds thanks to some — interesting — track history here at Bristol.
Tyler Reddick has struggled for results at Bristol in his Cup Series career.
Aside from a fourth-place finish in the second Bristol race in his rookie year back in 2020, Reddick has finished no better than 12th on the concrete at the fastest half-mile track in the world.
While some of that can be attributed to adjusting to the Next Gen car, we can’t forget Reddick is an Xfinity Series winner at Bristol after starting dead last and beating a field that included Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and more.
Then, the aforementioned fourth-place finish came as Reddick was one of just six drivers to finish on the lead lap, behind only Kevin Harvick, Busch and Erik Jones.
Of course, those were a half-decade or more ago, so those of us in “what have you done for me lately” mode want to see more.
Enter, practice.
Reddick ranked fourth in my practice FLAGS metric among those drivers that went out in the second practice group, right alongside fellow Toyota driver, team owner and last year’s Food City 500 winner Denny Hamlin as top Toyota in speed among that group of cars.
In fact, if we look at Reddick’s time later in the practice run, it could be argued he had the best long-run car.
From laps 29-35 on each driver’s tires, Reddick posted the single best average speed among the second practice group, and third overall behind only Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Carson Hocevar.
With fewer marbles and less rubber, Hocevar and Stenhouse may have benefitted from the conditions by going out in the first group, so Reddick potentially had the best long-run car solely based on practice speeds.
By comparison, Hamlin averaged a 16.29 second lap over those laps compared to Reddick’s 16.05-second average lap time.
The Bet: Tyler Reddick Top Toyota (+800) — ESPN BET
BRISTOL, Tenn. — On the surface, media requests for NASCAR superstars Jeff Gordon and Kyle Larson may seem like the sport’s equivalent of climbing Mount Everest, both supremely sought-after voices at the top of motorsports excellence.
Instead, thanks to Jon Edwards, those requests were among the most feasible in the NASCAR industry.
Edwards served as Gordon’s longtime public relations representative since 1994, one year into Gordon’s once-blossoming, now-legendary career. But it wasn’t until 2021 that he officially began his work for Hendrick Motorsports, joining to serve as Larson’s representative before an additional 2022 promotion as the organization’s director of communications.
Edwards died Thursday at age 52. Though the public may not have known Edwards personally, it felt his impact in unimaginable ways. Edwards was responsible for making heroes like Gordon and Larson more accessible to the media to better tell their stories. What could have been the most intimidating ask of a young reporter’s career was made to feel like you were instead asking for a beverage from the refrigerator.
His loss reverberated through the garage at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, a reminder of how impactful Edwards’ 31 years in and around NASCAR were outside Hendrick’s teams — first with Gordon’s No. 24 and later with Larson’s No. 5.
“He meant a lot to me personally,” Larson said Friday. “Just getting to be with him since 2021 and go on a couple vacations and stuff with him, getting to know him, and just be around him a lot. He’s probably the guy that I’m around the most on the 5 team. I’m gonna miss having him around. He’s had a long career with Jeff Gordon and Hendrick Motorsports.
“Definitely a sad week for the industry. We’re gonna mourn his loss and try to win some races for him this weekend. He would want us to not be sad. He was a happy person, so we’re gonna hold our heads high and represent him well this weekend.”
That Larson did on Saturday, where he gave Edwards another ride to Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Xfinity Series race. A decal rode on the C-post of Larson’s car as well as those of JR Motorsports Saturday, featuring his photo, name and one phrase: “One of a kind.” There to both celebrate and help coordinate hat dances in Victory Lane were Ashly Ennis and Autumn Darracq.
Ennis is in her eighth season at Hendrick Motorsports, serving now as its communications manager and public relations representative for William Byron and the No. 24 team. She worked hand-in-hand with Edwards, who mentored her and many other communications professionals through the Hendrick campus.
“This is what Jon would have wanted,” Ennis told NASCAR.com. “Jon was someone who never wanted the spotlight or the attention, so we’ve been joking that, honestly, he probably wouldn’t have liked all of the attention he’s been getting. This (win) is what he would have wanted. He would have wanted us to come out here and just do our job and do it to the best of our ability because that’s what he taught us to do.”
Darracq was among those whom Edwards mentored as she joined the NASCAR powerhouse that is Hendrick Motorsports. After spending the 2022 season with Live Fast Motorsports, Darracq had an opportunity to interview for a job at Hendrick. What she didn’t know was that with one year of experience in the role, she was interviewing to take Edwards’ position on the road as Edwards stepped back for the 2023 campaign.
“Once I found out it was for the 5 and to fill Jon’s shoes, I was like, there’s no shot. Like there’s no way,” said Darracq, now a marketing account executive for the team. “But long story short, he believed in me. And I think that that was a common theme in the way that Jon treated people. It didn’t really matter where you came from. He saw work ethic and he was an encourager. He was someone who took so much pride in his work that it was contagious. It made you want to resemble the same. He was a leader and a role model. Jon was truly one of a kind.”
Amy Walsh Stock now serves as the Vice President of Communications for Legacy Motor Club, a role that follows a long career as a longtime PR professional for seven-time Cup champ Jimmie Johnson, Gordon’s Hendrick teammate of 14 years and now team owner of Legacy. But 25 years ago, Walsh Stock was just breaking into the sport in the Craftsman Truck Series. She met Edwards in 2000 and immediately took note of how Edwards conducted himself.
“As a young PR person in my 20s coming in, I just wanted to be like Jon,” Walsh Stock said Saturday. “He was just a consummate professional. He was always super kind. He was always there. I don’t think in 25 years that I made a single career move without talking to him first.”
Edwards, who attended the University of North Carolina, became the gold standard in his profession. Whether the goal was to promote his driver’s brand on “Saturday Night Live” or coordinate an interview with an up-and-coming blogger, Edwards handled each request with the same kindness, attention and respect any media representative could ask for. And even if Edwards had to deliver a no, there were never any hard feelings left behind.
Jonathan Ferrey | Getty Images
“Jon could basically tell you no and have you buy him a beer later because he was so happy,” said Joe Crowley, who handles public relations for Ty Gibbs and the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing team. “He had like a magic touch of just working (through problems). Like Amy said, it was always about finding a solution. Like, ‘we can’t do this, but I can get you the crew chief; I can get you this.’ There’s always a solution.”
Dustin Long, a longtime motorsports reporter for NBC Sports, worked closely with Edwards to coordinate countless stories dating back to 1999. In a world that evolved from written print to social videos and the different forms of media through 30 years of technology, Edwards evolved with it and helped connect drivers to the media, who then helped connect back with the fans.
“If you had a question, you can go to him and get an answer,” Long told NASCAR.com. “If you had a request, he would do his best to make it happen. And a lot of times, he would make it happen, even when maybe Jeff didn’t have a whole lot of time — but he could squeeze you in. And from a reporter’s perspective, that’s important, because at the end of the day, we are the conduit to the fan. And sometimes, it is important to hear that driver’s voice. And sometimes you get a few minutes, and sometimes it’s a snippet of time. But all of that can matter to the fans, explaining in greater detail what happened, why it happened, how it happened.
“And without the help of Jon, sometimes you wouldn’t be able to tell that story. So Jon helped myself and others tell a more complete story and better inform the fans.”
It was no wonder he won multiple rewards for his efforts, among them the NASCAR Public Relations Representative of the Year Award, the National Motorsports Press Association Ken Patterson Helping Others Award and the Jim Chapman Award for career-long excellence in motorsports public relations.
The same decal that ran on Larson’s winning car Saturday was featured across Hendrick Motorsports’ four-car stable Sunday.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — As Kyle Larson thumped the Xfinity Series field in Saturday’s SciAps 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Justin Allgaier chased just behind the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver to bank a third-place result and his second $100,000 Dash 4 Cash prize during the 2025 program.
Leading a whopping 277 laps of the 300-circuit affair, Larson had little competition on long green-flag runs despite Allgaier’s best attempts to challenge for the lead a few laps into restarts.
“I’m disappointed in the day, I’m disappointed in the finish but at the same time, it’s still a great day,” Allgaier said shortly after exiting his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. “To come out of here third and be upset about it, that’s a good thing, right?”
Making contact with lapped cars and his own teammates around the hotly-contested bullring, elbows were out all race long for Allgaier as he navigated through traffic despite racing just Austin Hill for the penultimate Dash 4 Cash award after Stage 1.
Half of the four-driver group going for the six-figure prize had their days end in dramatic fashion as Sheldon Creed and Brennan Poole had a major impact coming off Turn 4 that brought out the red flag in the closing laps of Stage 1.
Contact with Dean Thompson sent the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Ford around and skidding to a stop before hitting the outside barrier, but with little time to react as Creed’s car began the descent down the steep banking, Poole’s No. 44 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet collided heavy into the left-front of the No. 00, scattering debris and door foam across the concrete frontstretch.
Both Creed and Poole were checked and released from the infield care center shortly after.
“It happens so quickly here,” Creed said of the hit from Poole. “That first car missed me so I thought if the first one missed me, maybe they’ll all miss me, and obviously Brennan just didn’t see me. It happens every year here, right? Things happen so quickly and you’re going so fast, and not a lot of time to avoid a car sitting in the middle of the track. I haven’t had that air knocked out of me in a long time.”
“It did knock the breath out of me,” Poole said. “I was talking to Sheldon when we got in the trailer. He said it knocked the breath out of him, too. I was back to the gas coming off the corner. I couldn’t see the 00. My spotter said ‘check up.’ I started checking up immediately as soon as I saw him in frame before I could see out of my windshield, he was in the middle of track. I just didn’t expect him to even be there.”
With Hill falling a lap down during the race, the $100,000 bonus was all Allgaier’s as he battled his young teammates Carson Kvapil and Sammy Smith in the top five.
Kvapil ended up squeaking by Allgaier for second in the final five laps, giving the Xfinity rookie another runner-up on a high-banked, concrete oval.
“He’s done a great job and we talked a lot before the race,” Allgaier said of Kvapil. “Him and [crew chief] Andrew [Overstreet], they’re working really well together and that whole 1 team, and really just proud of the effort as our whole shop. We’ve put a lot of effort into being good at this place and it shows. They’re [Kvapil and Smith] both great race car drivers. They’re young and they’re going to be threats when we come back here in the fall, and they’re going to be threats for the rest of the year going down to the end of the year for a championship. I’m proud of the effort that they’re putting in.”
No third victory sticker to go on the No. 7 but Allgaier remains appreciative for the opportunity to run for another bonus.
“Getting the Dash 4 Cash and what Xfinity does for this series is really a big deal,” Allgaier said. “To be able to get the Dash 4 Cash was important. We’ll go back to the drawing board — figure out what we can do better when we come back here in the fall and hopefully win ourselves one.”
Track: Bristol Motor Speedway Location: Bristol, Tennessee Track length: 0.533 miles When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET Where to tune in: FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Race purse: $11,055,250 Race distance: 500 laps | 266.5 miles Stages: 125 | 250 | 500 Defending winner:Denny Hamlin, March 2024 Starting lineup:Alex Bowman wins Busch Light Pole
‘Last Great Colosseum’ set to deliver in Thunder Valley
There is no place in sports like Bristol Motor Speedway.
A half-mile, high-banked, full-bore concrete bullring, Bristol is an arena steeped in history, legend and lore. That, in part, is what makes winning here so special — conquering the competition in the same theater where greats like Waltrip, Earnhardt and Gordon rose to fame.
The stars of today feel that same allure. Denny Hamlin, 11th all-time in NASCAR Cup Series wins, is chasing his third consecutive Cup win and has won two of the last three races at Bristol. Kyle Busch has scored an astounding eight victories at the concrete canyon. Kyle Larson has won two of the last five races at Bristol with top 10s in 10 of the last 11. Yet, for all their laps around the stadium-like oval, the aura of Bristol never dissipates.
Joey Logano, the defending and three-time Cup champion, has been racing Cup cars at Bristol since 2009. Sixteen years and two Bristol wins later, walking into the track still sparks a fire within Logano that no other venue elicits.
“It’s the ‘wow’ factor, right?” Logano said Saturday. “It’s the badass factor of what this place is. I think that’s what stands out, right? Whether it’s the fans all the way around here — it’s ‘The Last Great Colosseum,’ right?”
“It’s an iconic venue,” said Tyler Reddick. “Iconic moments have happened here. This place has just been a staple of NASCAR racing for so long and it’s grown with the growth of NASCAR over the decades. From my perspective, this is a place that I’ve gotten to come and watch races at when I was younger, and I’d be glued to the television watching this race as a kid.
“The intense moments, the iconic moments, the tight battles. Anywhere on the race track, especially for the leaders, it seems like the leaders are always managing lapped traffic, battling something. It just feels like at any moment, chaos can unfold. Or at any moment, a mistake can happen to change the lead. It just feels like this place puts you on the edge of your seat.”
Even experienced veterans feel the intensity of Bristol walking into the building.
“The feelings are nerves,” Ross Chastain said. “Instant stomach twists. Just an intimidating place. I watched the truck race (Friday) night. I don’t understand how that many trucks and drivers can do what they’re doing and not crash more. And then once I get on track, it’s a little simpler. It’s a daunting place to walk into. I was wishing I had on-track time (Friday) so I could settle down. Once I get on track, then I’m OK. But every time walking in here, something’s twisted.”
“It’s a place that, I’m gonna say, it’s impossible to fake,” Christopher Bell said. “Like you’re not gonna come here and run well and not be a talented driver. So aside from the atmosphere, the fans, the facility itself, it’s just the race track and what it takes to be successful around this race track.”
What do crew chiefs and pit crews have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
The 2024 Bristol spring race produced one of the most unpredictable days in the track’s 63 years of racing. Heavy tire wear forced drivers and teams to manage the severe lap-time fall-off, with some drivers firing off too quickly and burning their tires to shreds while others conserved their Goodyear rubber and maximized their durability.
Last year, Chris Gayle was atop the box for then-sophomore Ty Gibbs. The No. 54 car led 137 laps but ultimately faded to ninth as more veteran drivers optimized their tire wear. Now, Gayle is working with Hamlin, who managed the wear best to win the 2024 race and is in the midst of his 20th full-time Cup season.
Gayle’s belief Saturday morning was that last spring’s race was an outlier and that tire wear wouldn’t be as excessive this spring. By his estimation, three aspects presented unique variabilities: the particular batch of tires used, traction compound and cold temperatures.
This weekend’s Goodyear tire is the same that was used in last spring’s race — but it was also used in the 2023 and 2024 fall races, in which tires wore far less aggressively and far more predictably. PJ1 Trackbite has been laid upon the track’s bottom groove this year instead of last year’s resin. And Saturday’s 52-degree Fahrenheit high temperatures were even cooler than last year’s 63-degree high.
Cameron Richardson | NASCAR Digital Media
By the end of Saturday’s practice, teams indicated tire wear would indeed be a significant factor Sunday afternoon as tires corded within 50 laps.
“I don’t think anybody went more than I think I saw 45 laps on one car, and the tire wear was definitely a lot higher than we expected,” Gayle told NASCAR.com after practice. “So we’ll see something in between the spring and the fall last year is what it looks like potentially.”
Gayle’s pre-practice beliefs were largely shared throughout the garage, but there, too, was a lingering hesitation after last spring’s surprise.
Chris Buescher and the No. 17 RFK Racing team were among a small number of teams testing tires over the summer, trying to solve for those variables. Crew chief Scott Graves has been trying to land on which direction Sunday’s race will go based on that information.
“Last fall, we came here not sure what we were going to have with tires based on the spring race,” Graves told NASCAR.com. “And we anticipated more of the tire wear issues and I’d say we almost detuned our cars a little bit trying to account for some of that. We brought some different things and it wasn’t as good, and then we didn’t end up having tire issues. So we kind of reverted back more to some of our past stuff in hopes that we don’t have the tire issues. It’s kind of an unknown.”
The application of the PJ1 Trackbite was a factor in that test session, though, giving the No. 17 team a notebook to work off for Sunday’s race.
“That was one thing we had when we did that test in the summertime to try to see if we could recreate the issues,” Graves said. “We were having a lot of tire wear, and then they put some PJ1 down on the bottom, and it didn’t fix it, but it got noticeably better when we did that. So I feel like it helps.”
In preparation for the increased tire wear, NASCAR notified teams Sunday it has added an extra set of Goodyear tires to teams’ allotment, bringing the total number of sets available to 11 — 10 sets of fresh tires in addition to teams’ qualifying tires. That is the same number of sets teams ended the 2024 spring race with.
With heavy tire wear, slow down to go fast. Last year’s pair of Bristol visits presented a tale of two races. The average lap speed of the March 2024 contest was just 79.678 mph, slowed by excessive wear, nine cautions and 98 caution laps. In contrast, the September night race saw just five cautions with an average speed of 101.277 mph. But with so much wear came a track-record 54 lead changes in March — nearly seven times more than September’s eight.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
TY GIBBS. Coming off his first top-10 finish since September 2024, Gibbs could be a threat for his first career Cup win on Sunday. The third-year driver has led more than 100 laps in two of his last three starts at Bristol with one top five and two top 10s in those efforts. His 2025 season has not gotten off to the best start, but momentum in his sails heading into one his best tracks could be exactly what Gibbs needs to start a new roll of success.
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
With significant tire wear in practice, shades of the spring 2024 Bristol race were on display Saturday. Experience prevailed in last year’s first Bristol race, with the top three drivers in the finishing order each being north of 40 years old. With the unknown, it makes fantasy more of a guessing game. I’ve added polesitter Alex Bowman to my lineup in place of Chris Buescher. My entire lineup is filled with drivers from Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing.
Lineup: Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman.
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles. • Jesse Love making Cup debut at Bristol: Xfinity regular leaning on Cup veterans in preparation | Read more
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s Food City 500 | Read more
• Turning Point to Bristol: Which contenders are already in must-win mode? | Read more
• Scenes and snapshots: Best photos from a tripleheader weekend at Bristol | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race replays from the Bristol archives | Watch races
• Paint Scheme Preview: All the schemes set to hit the track in Thunder Valley | View gallery
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Pole winner Kyle Larson brought a bazooka to Saturday’s shootout at Bristol Motor Speedway.
His 37 opponents brought pea shooters to the “Last Great Colosseum” — or so it seemed, given the degree of domination Larson exhibited in winning the SciAps 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
The driver of the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet led 277 of 300 laps in securing his first victory in two series starts this season, his second at Bristol and the 16th of his career. At the finish, there were only 12 cars on the lead lap.
Larson finished 2.054 seconds ahead of Carson Kvapil, who passed series leader Justin Allgaier for second place in traffic on Lap 298. Allgaier held third and collected his record seventh $100,000 Xfinity Dash 4 Cash bonus as the highest finisher among four eligible drivers.
To Larson, the victory was a fitting tribute to his friend and PR representative, Jon Edwards, who passed away suddenly during the week leading up to the Bristol race weekend.
“It’s awesome,” said Larson, who finished second in Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race. “I wish I could have won last night — just came up a little bit short. It’s cool to get a win this weekend for Jon and everybody who’s been a part of his life.
“We’ve got one more tomorrow (in Sunday’s Food City 500 NASCAR Cup race). There’d be nothing better than to cap it off with a Cup win for Jon and all of Hendrick Motorsports. … I’ve got a great car there for (Sunday). We’ve just got to execute like we did today.”
Kvapil matched his career-best finish, having run second at Dover last year. His No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was at its best in the closing laps.
“We just kept working on it and made it better and better every pit stop,” Kvapil said. “I felt like toward the end we had a pretty fast car, but there was just so much traffic, it was hard to really get into a good rhythm.”
Sammy Smith ran fourth, as JR Motorsports drivers took the three positions behind Larson and locked into Dash 4 Cash eligibility for next Saturday’s race at Rockingham, along with fifth-place finisher Brandon Jones of Joe Gibbs Racing.
Larson was cruising to a wire-to-wire victory in the first stage, having lapped Jeb Burton in the 14th position, when Sheldon Creed’s Ford spun sideways off Turn 4 after a bump from Dean Thompson’s Toyota.
Charging through the corner behind the spin, Brennan Poole couldn’t avoid Creed’s car, and his Chevrolet collided with Creed’s Mustang in a vicious crash that destroyed both machines and eliminated two of the four eligible Dash 4 Cash drivers from the race.
Both drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center. “For Brennan’s sake, it happens so quick,” Creed said. “And I was sitting right there in the middle of the track.”
NASCAR red-flagged the race for 14 minutes 8 seconds, and Larson lost the 3.4-second lead he held over second-place Allgaier and the advantage of more than 10 seconds over Connor Zilisch in third.
After the red flag was lifted, Larson and Allgaier paced the lead-lap cars to pit road—with the exceptions of Sam Mayer and Ryan Sieg, who stayed on the track and finished 1-2 in Stage 1 after a three-lap dash that ended on Lap 85.
Larson finished third in Stage 1, and after Mayer and Sieg pitted during the break, Larson regained the top spot for a restart on Lap 97. The clinic continued, with Larson winning Stage 2 — his 17th stage win in the series — by nearly nine seconds over Allgaier.
After pit stops and wave-arounds, 16 drivers took the green flag for the final stage on the lead lap, and Allgaier snatched the top spot from Larson moments after the Lap 182 restart.
It didn’t last. Ten circuits later, Larson gave Allgaier’s Chevy a bump in Turn 1, moved him up the track and shot past into the lead. Allgaier kept Larson within shouting range until the lapped car of Mason Massey blocked Allgaier’s line off Turn 4 and turned sideways near the start/finish line after contact between the Camaros.
Collected in the incident and eliminated from the race was the Toyota of William Sawalich, who had been running in the top 10.
For Allgaier, the Dash 4 Cash bonus was something of a consolation prize.
“I’m just bummed about the day a little bit, to come out of here in third,” he said. “You know, I had the mistake there with the lapped car, and I wish it had gone green, because it probably would have helped us…
“But to lock three of the four (JR Motorsports drivers) into the next Dash 4 Cash is huge. I got out front there, and I just felt like we needed a little bit more to keep up with Kyle. He was obviously really good, and his pace in traffic was phenomenal.”
The final Dash 4 Cash race will take place Saturday, April 19 at Rockingham Speedway in the North Carolina Education Lottery 250 presented by Black’s Tire (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Kvapil, Allgaier, Smith and Jones are eligible for the last bonus of the 2025 season.
Contributing: Staff reports
Note: Post-race inspection in the Xfinity Series garage was completed with no issue, confirming Larson as the race winner. The No. 7 Chevrolet had one lug nut not safe and secure, which will result in a monetary fine.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — The saying goes “two’s company, three’s a crowd,” but at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, three’s been good company.
The expansion to a third full-time team can be a daunting task for an organization with having to make room in their shop, hire new employees to work on the car and find a driver that fits the brand. So far in 2025, RFK has found its perfect fit in Ryan Preece.
Eight races through his first season piloting the No. 60 Ford, Preece has arguably been the breakout driver of the first quarter with three top 10s, including a third-place result at Las Vegas which matched a career-high at the Cup level. When it comes to meshing with teammates Chris Buescher and Brad Keselowski, Preece touted the balance and insight all three can provide at all track disciplines.
“What I’ve liked is each one of us has something that the other one could use to a certain extent,” Preece said Saturday at Bristol. “Brad’s super detailed. Chris is just really freaking good at road courses and mile-and-a-halves. I’m good at short tracks and I feel like we all complement what the program is working to be.”
Preece has used what he’s learned from Keselowski and Buescher to turn in two top 10s at 1.5-mile tracks in Vegas and Homestead, already tying the most top 10s Preece has had in a single season at intermediate ovals (2024, Nashville and Homestead).
With Buescher snagging five top 10s in his own right already in 2025, Preece has welcomed the challenge of competition among his teammates that makes them all better, even if it’s extracurricular activities.
“The willingness of all of us to push each other … we actually went on a team bike ride here and all of us bike a lot,” Preece noted. “It was just funny. We were all racing to get back before the rain. Each one of us tried putting it in high gear and pushing and going faster than one another. That was the thing I liked about it.”
The RFK trio all showed top-10 speed last weekend at Darlington until a tire issue and an untimely caution stifled the final results for Keselowski (33rd) and Preece (26th), respectively.
They will look for the speed to carry over to Bristol, where RFK has been stellar since the rebrand of the organization in 2022.
Buescher won the 2022 Bristol Night Race and has tallied two top 10s since, including a seventh-place result in the spring race last year after starting 34th. With conditions so far looking akin to last year’s spring race, there’s some déjà vu entering Sunday’s 500-lapper as Buescher will start 24th. Keselowski finished third in the same event while Preece finished 14th with the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing.
With several other Cup organizations expanding to a third car this season like 23XI Racing, Trackhouse Racing and Front Row Motorsports, Buescher has been most impressed with how RFK Racing is adapting.
“[We] had a lot of speed at a lot of different places for two years now and we’ve talked about that being a big high point for us at RFK,” Buescher said. “Adding a third team is tricky, and typically, there’s a rather steep learning curve. I see it in the garage right now with some teams that have picked up a third [car] and the 60 group’s done a great job to pick up and be competitive right off the truck. It is truly rewarding for all of us at RFK right now.”
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series driver will pit for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
See where your favorite NASCAR Xfinity Series driver will pit for the SciAps 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday (5 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
See where your favorite NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver will pit for the Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
BRISTOL, Tenn. — A little ray of sunshine was all Alex Bowman needed to secure the pole position for Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Well, not quite all. Bowman also had to turn a blistering lap in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet during Saturday’s time trials at the 0.533-mile short track, and he did just that.
Bowman covered the distance in 14.912 seconds (128.675 mph) — the fastest lap ever run at Bristol in the NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen car. That was good enough to hold off fellow Chevrolet driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (128.563 mph) by 0.013 seconds to secure the top starting spot for the ninth Cup Series race of the season.
It wasn’t just the Busch Light Pole Award that had Bowman salivating. Extensive tire wear in the practice session that preceded qualifying compared to last year’s spring event in Thunder Valley, where tire fall-off was a crucial aspect of the competition.
“I think we’re all much more prepared than we were last spring,” said Bowman, who ran his lap under favorable cloud cover — with the sun coming out shortly after his qualifying attempt and warming the track slightly on an otherwise chilly day. “I’m excited for a tire management race. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll see what we’ve got.
“We started practice with rubber already on the track from the Xfinity cars, peeled it right up and sawed the tires right off. Yeah, confusing why we’re doing it again when we didn’t do it in the fall…
“It’s going to be warmer tomorrow. Maybe that changes it. It’s really difficult to say. I think it’s going to be like that (the spring race), but we’ll find out together, I think.”
Kyle Larson (128.511 mph) qualified third, after winning the pole position for Saturday’s Xfinity Series race earlier in the day. Denny Hamlin, winner of the last two Cup events, was fourth in the fastest Toyota at 128.460 mph, and Ryan Blaney topped all other Ford drivers with a fifth-place qualifying lap at 128.305 mph.
In seven of the last eight Cup races at Bristol, the winner has come from the top five spots on the starting grid — two from the pole and two from the second starting position.
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell claimed the sixth and seventh starting spots, with AJ Allmendinger, Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley claiming eighth, ninth and 10th, respectively.
Kyle Busch was 15th fastest in qualifying, but he spun off Turn 4 on his second lap and flat-spotted his tires. Joey Logano, who qualified immediately after Busch, broke loose off Turn 2 and smacked the outside wall with the right rear of his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. Logano will start 38th on Sunday.
Xfinity Series regular Jesse Love qualified 19th for his Cup Series debut on Sunday in the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
Stenhouse fastest in practice
Hyak Motorsports’ Ricky Stenhouse Jr. topped the leaderboard in practice at 128.082 mph ahead of Team Penske drivers Ryan Blaney (127.571 mph) and Austin Cindric (127.140 mph).
Kyle Larson (126.737 mph) and Chase Elliott (126.520 mph) rounded out the top five for Hendrick Motorsports.
