After a very long and cold weekend the boys finally finished the first Bristol race of the season. We finally seen some speed, and a little consistently from the Chevrolet camp. With one good thing comes a multitude of bad things though. The outcry from fans about the weather was a lot larger than I as a fan expected, and I have my own opinion about it but we will get to that at another time. The best part though was in typical short track fashion we finally got to see some rubbing with our racing. As we all know rubbing eventually leads to yellow flags. Not all our yellows this week occurred due to that teams again had an issue with loose wheels taking out serious competitors. Bristol weekend took a little longer than some might have thought, but its over and here's your weekly race review.
Bristol Motor Speedway looked to be the same old same old conversation
for the Chevrolet's. After qualifying only two of them were in the top ten. Kyle Larson appeared again to look for another strong run at Bristol, and Alex Bowman was looking to maybe get his first trip to victory lane. Both would eventually finish solidly in the top five, but only after a long race. Kyle Larson led a race high 200 laps, and once again was looking to win at the half mile track. At one point we even seen the 42 car out to a five and half second lead. Which given at Bristol can be gone in a madder of micro seconds but still the speed was there this weekend for Larson. Along with Larson, rookie "Bubba" Wallace, and his car had some speed along with Larson. Wallace was driving like a mad man at one point during the race throwing down with some of the best. Larson and Bubba would lead a combined two hundred and six laps. The most among st the three manufacturer's. Over all the weekend finished off pretty good, especially after the bumps that were suffered on pit road by mostly Chevrolet drivers we seen multiple pit road penalties, from the 88 team,43 team, 1 team and the 31 team. Now needless to say it wasn't just all Chevrolet teams, but they did have a majority of the penalties. After the bumps on pit road, though the camp recovered and put four cars in the final top ten. Once again though P1 was not a Chevrolet, but if anything was proven this weekend. It was that this car is slowly, but surely coming around for these guys. If your a fan of any "Team Bow tie" your driver's season is just about to begin I believe.
Once this past weekend fell upon us as fans, we were finally relieved that this would be the week we would see some good old fashioned "short track racing." Boy did these guys not disappoint, we seen bumping and banging on both days this race was ran. Could you imagine if they would've got run the whole race in one day? Stay tuned I have some opinions on that myself, but anyways. We seen the boys running extra hard on Sunday. At the end of stage one we seen Brad Keselowski bump the 42 outta the way and take the stage win. Unfortunately though not all bumps were good for everyone. After the 32 got into an incident with the 6, Ryan Blaney was took out. Those guys were about to be lapped and were racing like that trophy sword was there's for the taking. Bristol is known for this type of racing but as we all know tempers flair once the bumper's are used. After losing the lead to the 2 car, Kyle Larson was making his way up the field when he cut across the front bumper of Ryan Newman. Newmans radio traffic was quoted saying "Let him know I'm sorry, but he can't cut across my nose." This race was split up into two days and both days up to the very last few laps was action packed fast racing. Kyle Busch to claim his umpteenth win it feels like at the track used his bumper to move the dominant car Kyle Larson outta the way and take the win. Many "soft" fans as I like to call them might complain because Busch has won a race already and Larson hasn't. As the late great Dale Earnhardt once said "You've got to be closer to the edge than ever to win. That means sometimes you go over the edge and I don't mean driving either." Rubbing is racing isn't that how the old saying goes and I will always firmly believe in that mantra.
I touched a little bit on the NASCAR issued pit guns last week. It appears that maybe somethings didn't change. We seen once again multiple teams have problems with loose tires. Now could that be a mental error with the guys. Or maybe there is an unknown issue with these guns. Teams like Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin after leading had loose tire issues. Keselowski even had his tire fall off causing a caution. This is an issue as a fan I've noticed in multiple races this year, since these new guns have showed up. Needless to say the issue has always been around, but this year it appears its becoming more and more frequent. What do you as a fan think? Are these pit guys having issues with the guns? Are the guns themselves the issue? It'll be interesting to see as the season goes on What will happen.
So, here my final thoughts about Bristol. Something finally clicked for the Chevrolet camp and they showed some speed. Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace led a combine two hundred and six laps. Showing some dominance finally at a track through out the race not just in pre-race activities. The boys "had at it" so to say this weekend and as a fan I enjoyed it. I had to wait to watch the whole race two days, and as unfortunate as that was it was still worth every minute. I really hope the aggressiveness continues at Richmond, and for the rest of the season. This one is an interesting thing for me, these pit road guns. NASCAR wanted to make things fair among st the teams, due to the spending from multiple teams on equipment. I am excited about Richmond, and I'm always a fan of some night racing. After a long race weekend, on to Richmond I'll have the race preview ready for Richmond after qualifying today sometimes! Stay tuned I've also got a entry coming up about my thoughts on the rain delay situation and how the fans and officials handled it.
I touched a little bit on the NASCAR issued pit guns last week. It appears that maybe somethings didn't change. We seen once again multiple teams have problems with loose tires. Now could that be a mental error with the guys. Or maybe there is an unknown issue with these guns. Teams like Brad Keselowski, and Denny Hamlin after leading had loose tire issues. Keselowski even had his tire fall off causing a caution. This is an issue as a fan I've noticed in multiple races this year, since these new guns have showed up. Needless to say the issue has always been around, but this year it appears its becoming more and more frequent. What do you as a fan think? Are these pit guys having issues with the guns? Are the guns themselves the issue? It'll be interesting to see as the season goes on What will happen.
So, here my final thoughts about Bristol. Something finally clicked for the Chevrolet camp and they showed some speed. Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace led a combine two hundred and six laps. Showing some dominance finally at a track through out the race not just in pre-race activities. The boys "had at it" so to say this weekend and as a fan I enjoyed it. I had to wait to watch the whole race two days, and as unfortunate as that was it was still worth every minute. I really hope the aggressiveness continues at Richmond, and for the rest of the season. This one is an interesting thing for me, these pit road guns. NASCAR wanted to make things fair among st the teams, due to the spending from multiple teams on equipment. I am excited about Richmond, and I'm always a fan of some night racing. After a long race weekend, on to Richmond I'll have the race preview ready for Richmond after qualifying today sometimes! Stay tuned I've also got a entry coming up about my thoughts on the rain delay situation and how the fans and officials handled it.
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