After practice finished up on Friday with no tire issues and minimal wear, many within the NASCAR Cup Series garage were convinced that, despite Goodyear bringing a softer right-side tire, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race would look the same.
That statement couldn’t be further from the truth…
Christopher Bell brought home the victory in Saturday’s 500-lap gauntlet from Bristol Motor Speedway, after putting on brand new tires during a late-race caution and blasting to the lead in the closing laps.
That’s only just a small sample of the action-packed race that Bristol Motor Speedway and Goodyear’s softer right-side tire had to offer. When the green flag dropped, drivers went for it — expecting nothing out of the ordinary. Within 30 laps, they were all handed a reality check, with tires wearing down to the point where intervention from their pit crew was necessary.
From that point forward, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race became less of a motorsports contest and more of a chess match. Different drivers, on different strategies, would push their cars at different times, leading to major shuffling throughout the pack.
Everybody, including those watching at home on their televisions, thought they had things figured out, until teams pushing hard on their tires and sitting in the race lead couldn’t make it to the finish without a pit stop, then even those conserving their tires couldn’t make a 60-lap run to the finish.
RACE RESULTS: Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway
Near the end of the race, multiple strategies were ready to converge into an epic battle for the victory, when race-leader Brad Keselowski got into a lapper and sent Bubba Wallace into the outside SAFER Barrier.
That brought everyone to pit road — at least everyone who still had tires left. With four laps to go, the race restarted, and Bell, restarting as the second driver on the inside line, put the bumper to Zane Smith and slipped underneath and took the lead off Turn 2.
“I’ll tell you what, I was nervous on the choose. I didn’t know if I wanted to be on the bottom or the top, and whenever Brad [Keselowski] picked the top didn’t really give me an option. I had to pick the bottom,” said Christopher Bell. “All night long, I don’t know, old tires just really, really pushed up in the middle of the corners, so I was hoping that those guys on old tires would push up, and they did. They did, and I was able to get underneath them.”
It’s the 13th career victory for Christopher Bell in the NASCAR Cup Series, and his fourth of the season. The driver of the No. 20 Toyota Camry XSE hadn’t been to Victory Lane since the end of a three-race win streak where he won at Atlanta, COTA, and Phoenix.
Joe Gibbs Racing has now swept the opening three events of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, with Chase Briscoe winning at Darlington and Denny Hamlin winning at World Wide Technology Raceway.
Brad Keselowski finished in the runner-up position, searching for his first win of the season with RFK Racing. Keselowski was looking to be in a solid spot late in the race, and tried to give Bell a shot in the final corner, but came up just short.
Zane Smith recorded a third-place finish in the No. 38 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Front Row Motorsports, his first top-five in the NASCAR Cup Series for the organization. Team Penske teammates Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano rounded out the top-five, finishing fourth and fifth.
In just his seventh NASCAR Cup Series start, Corey Heim finished sixth in a fourth entry for 23XI Racing, the No. 67 Toyota Camry XSE. Heim is a 19-time winner in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and currently competes full-time in the series for TRICON Garage.
Carson Hocevar, after looking like he was in the catbird seat to earn his first career win in the NASCAR Cup Series, faded to seventh on the final restart for Spire Motorsports.
Alex Bowman, Chase Briscoe, and Ty Gibbs rounded out the top-10. Gibbs, still hunting down his first career victory in the NASCAR Cup Series, led a race-high 201 laps before missing the entry to pit road on the final set of green-flag stops, costing him a shot at the victory.
Alex Bowman (eighth), Austin Dillon (28th), Shane Van Gisbergen (26th), and Josh Berry (39th) were the four drivers who failed to advance to the ‘Round of 12’ in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Berry was having a strong run to start the evening off, sitting as high as third-place, but had a rocker panel fire on his No. 21 Ford Mustang Dark Horse that forced him to evacuate the racecar and ended his race prematurely.
Something similar happened to his Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric late in the going, but the No. 2 team, led by Brian Wilson, was able to get the Mooresville, North Carolina-native back on the racetrack only five laps down.
Chase Elliott also had some tense moments in the first elimination race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, after being involved in a wreck at Lap 310, which left him to finish 38th. Elliott was running decent when he tried to get down to the inside line and got contact from an oncoming John Hunter Nemechek, sending him head-on into the outside wall.
Following Saturday’s event at Bristol, the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs reset, with the 12 drivers that advanced to the second round being reset to 3,000 points, plus their Playoff Points.
The first event of the ‘Round of 12’ will take place at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 21, at 3:00 PM ET on USA Network, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
