NASCAR Bits and Pieces: The Bristol 'Food City 500' Quickie Recap and Race Results

Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Bristol 'Food City 500' Quickie Recap and Race Results

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race from Bristol Motor Speedway was the Food City 500 . It was good racing... where inside lines versus outside lines and older tires versus newer tires. It was classic racing challenges all around, including when the first multi-car caution came out on lap 24.

Kyle Busch, Marcos Ambrose, Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick were collected in a wreck between Regan Smith and Kasey Kahne, with Kahne's car collecting the other teams.

The wreck happened while Fox was off on commercial and they played out the ads first before coming back and telling the viewers.

They showed a very angry Kyle Busch pound his roof while getting out of his car and Kasey Kahne's post-accident interview sounded like he was leaning toward blaming Smith for not backing off this early in the race.

Pitting had a ton of different strategies take place this early on, but AJ Allmendinger stayed out and took the lead.

The next caution was on lap 116 for Ken Schrader hitting the outside wall. Looks like a RF tire set his date with the outside wall. Kyle Busch is back out.. so there's one spot/point he'll gain.

Every point is precious... Ask Edwards.

Once past the half-way point of the race is when you start paying attention... drivers start looking at the end game and where they're at and what they need to do to get where they want to. Allmendinger had a strong car, but then something happened and he faded.

This is how things looked at lap 325, well past the half-way mark:

Brad Keselowski
Matt Kenseth
Jeff Burton
Clint Bowyer
Jeff Gordon
Brian Vickers
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Jimmie Johnson
Greg Biffle
Martin Truex Jr.

Lap 340 sees David Stremme hit the wall bringing out the cautiona and Tony Stewart gets the free pass. The lap 346 restart sees Brad Keselowski lead Matt Kenseth, Jeff Burton, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Gordon to the green flag.

But then coming out of commercial, we see that after contact between Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr, Jeff gets his LR tire cut and crashes out, bringing out a caution.

Lap 380 top-10: Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Jeff Burton, Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex Jr. & Tony Stewart

Lap 410 top-9: Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr., Jimmie Johnson & Greg Biffle.

Lap 430 top-8: Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Martin Truex Jr. & Jimmie Johnson.

Lap 456 top-7: Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr. & Jeff Burton

With 25-to-go, Tony Stewart redesigned his RR quarter panel by hitting the wall and bringing out the caution... as the broadcast fades to commercial, cutting off Mike Joy in mid-sentence.

Up until this point, the lead was Keselowski's, but Kenseth kept threatening. And now that we have less than 25 laps to go, teams can pile onto pit road if they had concerns about fuel mileage. Some of the leaders stayed out. Super quick replays showed that Stewart had help from Gaughn in this incident, though nothing else was said about the incident.

Kes and Kenseth led the pack to the green flag and Daryl thinks Kenseth crossed the line first. (I think he's just drumming up excitement.)

Unless something goes wrong with Keselowski's EFI again, it's looking like his race to lose.

12 to go: 2, 17, 56, 15 and 55.

As the No 2 took the white flag, we hear about Dale Jr. being off the pace.

The Bristol Food City 500 Race Results, unofficial as they are: