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Every NASCAR racer loves Bristol. More importantly, every NASCAR driver
is desperate to win at Bristol. Here are five memorable Food City 500 races.
Over the years, Bristol Motor Speedway has hosted some of NASCAR’s most significant racing moments in Bristol, Tennessee. Bristol hosts two NASCAR Cup Series races each year on a course just over a half mile long.
Rusty Wallace has the most wins in Bristol’s storied history, with six wins between 1986 and 2000, while Hendrick Motorsports’ eight wins is the most by a single team.
As this year’s Food City 500 approaches, we decided to look back at some of the most memorable races in Food City 500 history.
Rusty Wallace Beats Dale Earnhardt by a Nose in 1993
Wallace is the most frequently winning driver in the history of Bristol Motor Speedway with six wins. However, The Intimidator is right behind him with five wins. The deciding race, as it turns out, happened in 1993.
The 1993 race was the second under the Food City 500 name, and it was indeed a race to remember, the best finish in the race’s history. It wasn’t quite the finish we just saw at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on February 21, but the odds this week were low that there would be a three-way photo finish.
In other words, it is hard for any race finish to be better than that brilliant finish in Atlanta.
Wallace and Dale Earnhardt battled for the entire race, but with 15 laps to go, Wallace got a reprieve when Earnhard had to fight to get around a lapped car in Mark Martin.
The Intimidator dispatched Martin quickly, but it was enough time to allow Wallace to build up a lead that Earnhardt couldn’t return from. In the end, Wallace beat Earnhardt by .82 seconds and performed a Polish victory lap, driving clockwise around the track, as a salute to the celebration’s creator, Alan Kulwicki.
A few days prior, the five-time race winner passed away in a plane crash.
Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth Battle It Out in 2006
In NASCAR, drivers have a saying: rubbin’ is racin. Short tracks often bring this term to life more than others, as evidenced by the number of Food City 500s marked by lots of bumping and hot tempers.
2006 is a prime example of this, as Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth came to blows. As the two…
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