Would Bristol Have Been Better Received with Late-Race Carnage?

The Bristol Night Race has long been NASCAR’s unofficial fourth or fifth crown-jewel event. What once was the rowdiest summer spectacular, and one of the hardest tickets in sports to come by, has in recent years has been a shadow of its former self.

Ask a fan not in a No. 5 hat who was there how they felt about things, and you’ll get an even more muted response. While Kyle Larson dominated and few cars could cleanly pass, would the race been improved with a bump-and-run or some cage-rattling late in the going? This week, Steve Leffew and Trenton Worsham share their history as they knew it in 2-Headed Monster.

The Fastest Car Won Without Theatrics

I have a unique perspective on what happened this weekend at Bristol, being that I was there covering the weekend for Frontstretch. Going into the weekend, the talk and story were all about the tires, as Goodyear mentioned the tires being brought were the same as in the spring. Then practice happened, and it was foreshadowing what everyone did not want to happen: a dud.

The Bristol night race was not going to be what we had hoped to see. 

Several drivers, such as Austin Cindric, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney were among those who said it had felt the way it did the last few years racing at Bristol, as opposed to the spring 2024 race after their practice and qualifying sessions. PJ1 traction compound was added to the bottom before the fall race to make it a multi-groove race, but alas, it did not help.

Larson led all but 38 of the 500 laps in an elimination race that saw hardly any passing. Larson and some others have all defended the race, saying that fans wanted green-white-checkered finishes or more wrecks to make it ‘good’, which 72% said it wasn’t in Jeff Gluck’s weekly poll on X.

The issue wasn’t a good old-fashioned butt-kicking, but rather the expectations of something we did not see, and what the race was as well. This isn’t an isolated issue, as Martinsville Speedway and Richmond Raceway have also turned into duds, with Richmond losing a date in 2025 in favor of an international race in Mexico City. 

I observed Denny…