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In the hills of Appalachia and across the fertile lands of the southeast, people make their living and lead humble lives off of the land. From the red clay that defines their soil, many a crop grow and produce fruit. It's how many in this region lived their lives before the advent of the automobile, when another use for the area's distinct dirt was put into practice.

Packed tight enough and with just the right amount of moisture, the red clay of the south goes from the mere dirt of fields and pastures into a fertile land for car and driver to race on. And this Easter Sunday night, the dirt of East Tennessee will be the soil from which a NASCAR Cup Series race springs.

The Cup Series heads to Bristol Motor Speedway for the third edition Food City Dirt Race, the only dirt race on the Cup Series calendar. Once a staple of NASCAR's earliest years, the once lost art of dirt racing in a stock car has been revived at Bristol, with layers upon layers of dirt turning the Last Great Coliseum into a palace of one of the purest forms of American auto racing.

How to watch the Dirt Race at Bristol

  • Date: Sun., Apr. 9
  • Location: Bristol Motor Speedway -- Bristol, Tenn.
  • Time: 7 p.m. ET
  • TV: Fox
  • Stream: fuboTV (try for free)

What to watch

  • Driving on dirt takes a much different style to go fast and make passes than it does to do the same thing on asphalt or concrete. Each turn marks what basically amounts to a controlled slide, and each driver must be precise about how soon and how hard they get back on the throttle -- lest they go from kicking the rear end of their car out to facing the wrong direction.

    Passing on dirt is also a different beast, as the slidejob -- a vintage dirt racing move in which a driver sails it into the inside of the corner and slides up into the lane of another car -- requires enough momentum that the pass can be completed without either getting crossed over by the car they're trying to pass or causing another issue.

    That didn't happen on the final lap of last year's Bristol Dirt Race, as a last-ditch attempt at a slidejob for the win by Chase Briscoe led to disaster for both him and race leader Tyler Reddick. Briscoe's move for the win in the final corner spun both him and Reddick out, allowing third-place Kyle Busch to make up an otherwise insurmountable deficit and take the checkered flag.

  • One year later, Briscoe acknowledged to reporters this week that "the only reason I didn't get a black eye" after the race was because he pulled that failed winning move on another driver who has extensive experience on dirt. Briscoe and Reddick, along with other Cup stars like Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr., understand what comes with the territory when racing on dirt. But in light of recent events, not all drivers in the field may be so understanding if they get used up on Sunday.

    Overaggressive driving and lack of racing etiquette have been sore points in the Cup Series as of late, particularly after the field spent most of overtime at Circuit of the Americas either driving through or running over each other. At Atlanta, Kyle Busch lamented how the sport has "completely lost any sense of respect in the garage between the drivers at all," which shows up in particular through devil-may-care racing, subsequent wrecks on late-race restarts, and acts of retaliation.

    The last two Bristol dirt races haven't featured aggressive driving in particular, but short track racing in general always creates opportunities for those sorts of incidents -- especially in a form of racing that not everyone has mastered. For what it's worth, this race had 10 cautions in 2021 and 14 cautions a year ago.
  • A couple of weeks ago at Circuit of the Americas, much was made about a new wave of "road course ringers", with the arrival former F1 champions like Jenson Button and Kimi Raikkonen putting a new spin on the longtime practice of road racing specialists getting in a car and moonlighting in Cup road races. Sure enough, a similar phenomenon has taken place in the decade since NASCAR resumed racing on dirt -- but only one "dirt ringer" is in the field this Sunday.

    Jonathan Davenport, a dirt late model superstar and a three-time champion of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, will make his Cup Series debut in a third car for Kaulig Racing. However, much like the gap between road ringers and the rest of the Cup Series field has significantly narrowed over the years, the advantage of dirt racing specialists has not been nearly as big as one may have thought.

    Both Bristol Dirt races have been won by Cup veterans Joey Logano and Kyle Busch, both of whom grew up racing on asphalt and neither of which have extensive dirt racing backgrounds. Meanwhile, of the three dirt racing-only drivers who ran the Bristol Dirt Race in 2021, none ended up finishing the race -- Mike Marlar and Shane Golobic both crashed out, while Chris Windom got knocked out after suffering an engine failure.

Pick to win

(Odds via Caesars Sportsbook)

Kyle Larson (+450): From the time that it was announced that the NASCAR Cup Series would be holding a dirt race again, the Bristol Dirt Race has appeared to be tailor-fit for Kyle Larson, one of the best dirt racers in the entire country. But to date, Larson's presence in this race has not really been felt: An early crash took him out of contention in 2021, and he only led 27 laps early last year despite an eventual fourth-place finish.

Larson's team has been firing on all cylinders as of late, and they seem to have especially hit on something at tracks a mile or less in length -- As evidenced by Larson's dominance at Phoenix and his win last week at Richmond. It's hard to bet against anyone at Hendrick Motorsports right now, and it's especially difficult to pick against Larson when it comes to dirt racing.