'Food City 500' Winners And 'The Chase'

I don't know if you were aware of this peculiar stat, but over the last four years, the driver that has won the Food City 500 has also found themselves sitting in The Chase at years' end?

Sure thing...   Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have all graced both the winners circle at Bristol and a slot in the chase in the same year, over the last four years.

Cool beans.  So if that is to hold true, then we should be seeing this years Food City 500 winner, Brad Keselowski, in the Chase this year!  Right?  I think he's got a team for it.

[NASCAR Stats Dept]

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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:

Bristol Motor Speedway, 'Food City 500' Weekend: Can Kyle Win It Again?

The gang are all piled into the big super fast bowl called Bristol this weekend for the NASCAR Food City 500.  If you never saw it, Bristol used to be a flat short track and the racing just from one weekend created more Ebay sheet metal than all of Ryan Newman's super speedway tumble cars of prior years.

But now that they've repaved the track, it's become a fast and mini super speedway with its progressive banked racing surface.  The bright side to the repave was that the event no longer took four hours due to a million cautions.  (OK, sorry to exaggerate... make it a thousand cautions.)  But some fans haven't taken to it, saying that the more continual racing, with longer runs, is boring. 

No one is ever happy with anything, are they?

Be it as it may, looking at past data, I'm thinking Kyle Busch can get a kick in the seat this weekend if he sticks true to form from his historical track-record.

But first, let's look at the TV scheduled for the Sprint Cup series and some factoids, shall we?

Sprint Cup Series TV Schedule

Food City 500 at Bristol (All times ET)

Friday (3/16):

First Practice - Noon on Speed
Qualifying     - 3:30 PM on Speed

Saturday (3/17):

2nd Practice - 9:30 AM on Speed
3rd Practice - Noon, not televised

Sunday (3/18): Food City 500 at Bristol live on Fox 12:30 PM ET

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Since 2008, Kyle Busch has won at Bristol four times so he's a force to be reckoned with here, while pole winners have been a bit random, with Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin nabbing two poles each since '08.

Amongst the gang, over the last 14 races at Bristol, Kyle Busch as the best average finish, followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr..  Behind them is Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle.

As you can see, the top-5 historical contenders are all potentials again this year as a few of them are running pretty strong so far this season.

Add to that that Kyle Busch (19.6%) leads the pack as one who has led the most laps at the track over the last few years, well, numbers favor Kyle.  Lady luck might have something else to say because his next closest contender is Matt Kenesth, having led just over 11% of the laps.  So he could be laying in wait, looking to take advantage of any mishap that befalls Kyle.  And we know "stuff" happens to Kyle.

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[stats provided by NASCAR statistical services]

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