Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Bristol - Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race Preview

brospn (60)in #sports • 8 years ago

Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race

Bristol Motor Speedway - Bristol, TN
Saturday August 18, 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on NBCSN
1/2 Mile High Banked Oval
Weather: Scattered Thunderstorms, 79°F

Previous Five Winners and Pole Sitters

Race	Race Winner	Pole Sitter
Spring 2018	Kyle Busch	Kyle Busch
Summer 2017	Kyle Busch	Erik Jones
Spring 2017	Jimmie Johnson	Kyle Larson
Summer 2016	Kevin Harvick	Carl Edwards
Spring 2016	Carl Edwards	Carl Edwards

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series returns to the Tennessee this Saturday night with the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. A total of 41 cars are scheduled to enter the event. The regular season is quickly running down, can anyone get past the Big Three and secure a spot in The Chase For The Cup at "The World's Fastest Half-Mile"?

The Favorite

With only three races remaining before The Chase For The Cup begins, drivers below the cut-off line are going to be desperate for a win to clinch a playoff spot. Expect a lot of banging and pushing around "The World's Fastest Half-Mile" on Saturday night. In the end all the aggression probably won't matter because Kyle Busch is the master of Bristol.

Busch has won the two previous races at Bristol, which includes the April race earlier this year. Overall he has seven career wins here, the most among active drivers. He also leads all active drivers in laps led with 2,233, Matt Kenseth is second nearly 700 laps behind despite having eight more career starts. On top of that, Busch has nine Xfinity and five Truck Series wins here. Busch knows how to push across the finish first at Bristol better than any other driver in NASCAR.

"We’re kind of on a hot streak with Bristol," said Busch. "We love going there. I would like to think that we can go there, be fast and be able to respond, absolutely. So we’ll see what we can do getting there, and hopefully having a fast racecar and doing what we normally do there, just try to stay out of trouble. It’s a tough place to stay out of trouble. This is the first time we’ve had M&M’S White Chocolate on the car, so hoping it keeps the good-luck streak alive and we can win three Cup races in a row for the first time there.”

Busch is riding an incredibly hot streak of ten top-five finishes in his last eleven starts. The only blemish came back at Daytona when he was wrecked by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. A victory Saturday night would all but guarantee Busch wins the regular season drivers championship, which would garner him 15 bonus points for The Chase. Those points are worth gold in the playoffs and Busch will be ready to fight for them.

Other Drivers to Watch

Kevin Harvick has three top-five and six top-ten finishes in his last six starts at Bristol, including a win in this race in 2016. His 13th place average finish here is second best among active drivers. He also won the race at Dover earlier this season, which has a high-banked concrete layout similar to Bristol except it's a mile long track. Despite leading the Cup Series with seven wins this season, Harvick is still trailing behind Kyle Busch in the drivers points standings. He is going to need to keep winning races if he is going to catch Busch for the regular season championship.

Kyle Larson led a race-high 200 laps in the first Bristol race this season and looked poised to win before Kyle Busch made a comeback to pass him with only six laps remaining. Larson settled for a runner-up finish, which he has done three times already this year without a win. Overall he has led 472 laps in his last three Bristol starts. Larson is aching for a checkered flag this season and Bristol represents one of his best opportunities to claim one.

For reasons that aren't particularly clear, Bristol is one of the top tracks for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. In eleven career starts, Stenhouse has two second place and six top-ten finishes here. He finished in fourth place in the first Bristol race this year, his top finish of the season. Stenhouse currently misses the cut for The Chase, he desperately needs a win this week to secure a spot in the playoffs.

"Bristol is by far one of our best tracks statistically and my favorite track," Stenhouse said. "We had a strong run there earlier this year so hopefully we can carry the information we learned into this weekend. I think the night race at Bristol is by far one of best races of the year. Hopefully, we can get our Fastenal Ford into victory lane and secure a spot in the playoffs."

The Team Penske stable of drivers could be a force to be reckoned with this week. Brad Keselowski won the first two stages of the first Bristol race and looked strong. Then the rain fell and postponed the race until Monday. For whatever reason, Keselowski struggled on Monday and spun out leading to a 23rd place finish. Ryan Blaney's race in April was even more heartbreaking. He twice took over the lead and led a hundred laps total for the event before being wrecked out of the race and finishing a disappointing 35th place. Joey Logano managed to avoid disaster and finish in 9th place. Both Logano and Keselowksi have claimed multiple wins at Bristol in their careers. The Team Penske crews will be sharing their notes once again and if they can find some improvements in the setups from April's race, one of them might bring home the checkered flag.

News Around the Track

NASCAR Xfinity and Cup Series veteran Elliott Sadler announced on his website Wednesday that 2018 will mark his final season as full-time driver.

"After much consideration and many conversations with my family, I’ve decided this will be my last season racing full time in NASCAR," Sadler wrote. "It’s time for me, as Dad, to help my kids pursue their dreams."

Over the course of his 24 year career Sadler recorded three Monster Energy Cup wins, thirteen Xfinity Series wins and one win in the Camping World Truck Series. Sadler has finished in second place in the Xfinity Series driver standings in each of the last two seasons and currently sits in second in the standings again this season as the series heads to Bristol this weekend. Bristol is the site of Sadler's first Monster Energy Cup victory, it came back in 2001 when he drove for the Wood Brothers.