Five cars on the lead lap. A record-setting 54 lead changes. A track setup that relied heavily on driver skill for success.
Bristol Motor Speedway's Food City 500 sure lived up to its name in Thunder Valley on Sunday, catching lightning in a bottle during the race. Arguably the best short track event in NASCAR history took place, and it happened without the half-mile bullring's signature tagline, the Colosseum of Crash: not a single car failed to finish due to a wreck.
"It was fantastic," said winner Denny Hamlin's crew chief, Chris Gabehart. "The whole weekend was nothing any of us expected."
That's because Goodyear's tire, a similar compound to previous Bristol races, did not take well to a new type of resin NASCAR added to the track's concrete racing surface. Little rubber was laid down, producing large-scale results: drivers struggled to control their cars with tires that would give out in 40, maybe 50 laps without proper management.
"This is the first time," Hamlin said, "The driver played a huge role in a long, long time."
It's no accident that, as the race unfolded, the top three drivers in the final stage were three of the oldest on the NASCAR circuit: 43-year-old Hamlin, 43-year-old Martin Truex Jr. and 40-year-old Brad Keselowski. Hamlin and Truex staged a phenomenal duel down the stretch, weaving in and out of lapped traffic with cars going wildly different speeds. Hamlin emerged the winner after more lead changes than any event in short track history, bypassing even superspeedway events like February's Daytona 500 where drafting causes the lead to change more frequently.
"It was a chess match," Hamlin said of the afternoon. "You learned on the fly. You just made adjustments. Each run we made, we just got a little better."
Gabehart agreed, praising Goodyear for the challenge they presented to race teams.
"The sport needs to learn from this," Gabehart said. "We got to stop talking badly about Goodyear in these situations. This is not bad. Goodyear can make a million-mile tire that I have on my car when I get to the airport and drive home. It's fantastic. I never have any trouble with it.
"[But] this is supposed to be sport. It's supposed to be hard. It's supposed to force these guys to make decisions in the car. Do I go now? Do I not? The crew chiefs to make decisions on how they treat the tire, what the setup is, how long do you want to run this stint.
"You can't just run the fuel tank out and the tire not blow. It might blow on you."
Watching drivers baby their cars made the whole ordeal fascinating to watch, comers and goers at a frenetic pace even amid the fury of 15-second lap times. But some of those drivers who did have their tires blow, as you might expect, weren't happy having to deal with Goodyears that left them on edge.
"I didn't have fun," said pole sitter turned 16th-place finisher Ryan Blaney. "What's fun about riding around … can't run 50 laps unless you blow a tire, you got guys blowing stuff, creeping around the racetrack. I can't believe there wasn't an accident … they say they brought the same tire, but that is absolute B.S."
It's an important inflection point for NASCAR, whose short track product has left much to be desired during the Next Gen era. Can they learn from this experience and produce a happy medium that could revolutionize sleepy racing the last few years at Dover, Martinsville and Richmond?
Early returns seem promising.
"There were times in the race, obviously, when there was anxiety around [having] enough tires to finish it," NASCAR chief racing development officer John Probst said Sunday night. "But man, coming out the end and watching all that, I would not want to change much at all, honestly. Just maybe give them more tires [in the fall]."
Traffic Report
Green: Joe Gibbs Racing. Two straight wins have put JGR back into the thick of this year's championship conversation. Hamlin, Truex, Christopher Bell and Ty Gibbs combined to lead 383 of 500 laps Sunday, never straying far from the top 10. Their group now has all four drivers inside the top eight in points with Truex tied with Kyle Larson for the series lead.
Yellow: Josh Berry. For a guy that cut his teeth on late model stock cars, this race felt tailor made for the rookie who replaced Kevin Harvick at Stewart-Haas Racing. Not to be, a front row start squandered after Berry pushed his tires a little too hard during the final 100 laps of the race. 12th may have been Berry's best run of the year, but it sure felt like a missed opportunity.
Red: Zane Smith. One of the sport's most promising rookies is feeling the pain of a new expansion team at Spire Motorsports. The lone DNF on the day (engine failure) left Smith in a hole, his third finish in five races of 35th or worse. Keep in mind most Cup Series fields these days max out at 36 cars.
Speeding Ticket: Goodyear. It's not for the reason you might expect; count me with Hamlin that this tire compound produced an outcome capable of changing the course of the sport if handled right. My issue is with the limited extra tires Goodyear had on site, as they were only able to produce one extra set beyond the max when problems hit.
Why bring such a limited inventory to the racetrack? Couldn't they at least have two or three extra sets on hand? We see at least one race a year where the unexpected strikes, and you'd think the sport's lone tire carrier for decades would be better prepared for such a scenario.
Oops!
A relatively clean race was marred by just a handful of incidents considering the rate of tires worn to the cords. The driver who struggled the most, though, is the one you might have least expected: two-time Cup champion Kyle Busch was caught up in multiple spins, never getting the handle right on his race car.
It wouldn't be NASCAR if Kyle Busch didn't drive in reverse once or twice a year pic.twitter.com/UJUn62mgQU
— Skewcar (@Skewcar) March 17, 2024
Naturally, one of the more quotable and emotional drivers in the sport was frustrated over both the situation with Goodyear and the inability to keep his race car under control.
"I'm so glad to be the one saving everyone's ass."
— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) March 17, 2024
Kyle Busch
A 25th-place finish, two laps off the pace, wasn't a good end to a weekend that also saw Busch beat out by young Christian Eckes in the Truck Series race on Saturday night.
Kyle Busch jumps out of the car and he’s out of here.
— Noah Lewis (@Noah_Lewis1) March 17, 2024
Byron another who went straight out of the track. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/4uWGmbcybm