Who… should you be talking about after the race?
Chris Buescher led the most laps on the night and held off a hard-charging Chase Elliott to win the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. The win is just the second of Buescher’s career, with the first one coming at a rain-shortened strategy race at Pocono Raceway in 2016.
Buescher survived a race where driver after driver experienced an issue, and a bold pit call by crew chief Scott Graves to take two tires was the winning move. The win also marks a complete sweep of non-playoff, upset winners in the Round of 16 after Erik Jones took the opening race at Darlington Raceway and Bubba Wallace pulled off the win at Kansas Speedway.
And don’t forget Buescher’s teammate Brad Keselowski had his best race of the season, leading 109 laps and winning stage one after not pitting the entire 125-lap stage. Unfortunately, a flat tire while leading late ended his hopes of winning, and he finished a disappointing 13th. Nonetheless, Keselowski can now call himself a winner as a NASCAR Cup Series owner. It was an all-around promising night for RFK Racing, which combined to lead 278 laps of the 500-lap event, and Bristol could potentially be a turning point in the team’s future success.
What… is the buzz about?
Tires and mechanical issues ravaged the field over the course of 500 laps. Leader after leader suffered an issue of some sort.
Aside from Keselowski’s issue, Christopher Bell was the cause of the night’s final caution when his right rear tire went flat while leading.
Although it seemed everyone had an issue with tires, most of the victims were Ford drivers. Austin Cindric, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney, Harrison Burton, Joey Logano and JJ Yeley were all Blue Oval drivers who suffered from a tire failure or loose wheel.
Denny Hamlin also had a right front tire failure after reporting power steering issues, which was another common problem on the night. Along with Hamlin, all the Toyota drivers (excluding Bell), plus polesitter Aric Almirola, Chase Briscoe and Alex Bowman, fell victim to power steering or other mechanical issues. Hamlin was the only driver of that group to finish the race and he did so with a respectable ninth-place run.
Fans and drivers alike were not happy with the failures, and it raises even more questions about the safety and structure of the Next Gen car. Considering the recent weeks have been full of criticism for the car, this race certainly did not help its…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Frontstretch…