NASCAR insiders react to 'total letdown' in Bristol Night Race
Saturday’s Round of 16 finale at Bristol was “uneventful” and a “total letdown,” Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck of The Athletic said on “The Teardown” podcast.
Kyle Larson thoroughly dominated the competition, leading 462-of-500 laps en route to picking up his fifth victory of the season. Larson recorded a 7.1-second margin of victory and put together the third most dominant Bristol win of all-time. Bianchi came away “disappointed” with how the race played out given the high expectations for it being the cutoff race before the playoff field slimmed down to 12.
“I’m not mad, I’m disappointed,” Bianchi said after the race. “I think we all agreed that going into this race, we had an idea of what this was going to be. You know, after what we saw in the spring, and this unpredictable driver’s racetrack, veterans who know how to save their tires are going to have the advantage. You know, all of the chaos for two races, I think it’s all going to come down to Bristol. It’s going to be dramatic for all the reasons you laid out. It’s Bristol baby, short track like all right, these guys are going to be put to the test. We are setting the table for an epic night.
“And we didn’t get it, and we got none of what we anticipated we would get. Racing was uneventful. The tire wear was non-existent. The passing was limited, and we got a rather monotonous cutoff race. Which is unfortunate because that’s not how this should be, especially on a track like Bristol. So, it is what it is.”
Tire fall-off non-existent at Bristol
The main reason cited for the overall lack of excitement was tires not showing any significant fall-off. In the first race at Bristol back in March, tire wear was excessive. This time around, tire wear was non-existent despite Goodyear bringing the identical tire compound to the racetrack.
With only four leaders, the 2024 Bass Pro Shops Night Race joined the 2023 Bristol Dirt and 2022 spring Martinsville as races with the fewest number of cars pacing the field in the Next Gen car era. There were just eight lead changes throughout the race. With tires not wearing as much as they did in the spring, drivers were posting similar lap times making it hard to pass. Denny Hamlin took the checkered flag by just one second in March in a race featuring 54 lead changes.
Gluck is struggling to figure out how both races turned out vastly different.
“It was a total letdown,” Gluck said. “It was just such a disappointing night, because everybody was so excited for it. And like I mean, take the racing aside. Like first of all, you had, oh, what are the tires gonna do? I mean, you had this unbelievable Bristol race in the spring, right? Like, that was one of the all-time great NASCAR races.”
NASCAR insider fired up at disappointing Bristol Night Race
Short track racing in the Next Gen car era has been hit or miss, and NASCAR admittedly is “baffled” by the inconsistency in the tires. Gluck challenged NASCAR not to accept the current short track product as the norm going forward.
“Ultimately, what I want to see is NASCAR just cannot settle for this as the short track product and this cannot be what is acceptable in any way,” Gluck said. “Like this cannot be like, ‘Well, we’ve tried some things, and this is just how it’s going to be now.’ Like that just cannot happen. Like the history of NASCAR short track racing is way too rich and way too meaningful to the sport to just go, ‘Ah, this car just doesn’t race that well there.’ But if you can’t figure out what you even did to the tires in the first place, maybe that’s not the solution.
“So, I don’t know what you do, I don’t know how you fix this. I don’t know that anybody does. But this just can’t be the thing. Because this is, you know, this is not a crown jewel. But it’s a shining moment for NASCAR and it’s a special night for NASCAR. This is an amazing place, an amazing race. It should be something that goes back to selling. People get hyped up for it and you shouldn’t go there being like, ‘Man, I feel like I’ve been duped.'”