Food City 500 from Bristol: Preview, predictions and more

Bristol will hold more questions than usual this time around, but drivers will have to figure out the answers quickly.

Most NASCAR fans enjoy a good short track race, and the Food City 500 is one worth circling on the calendar every spring. Even when it doesn’t produce high drama, there’s almost always something to talk about once it’s over.

This year, the spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway has more than its fair share of talking points before the green flag drops as well. Those start with the weather, which rained out both Friday qualifying and the original Sunday race date and bumped the race to Monday for the first time in a while.

All that rain may undo the efforts the track made to create a stickier lower groove. While drivers have been split on whether or not making the bottom groove the preferred line is the way to go, it might not matter now anyway thanks to this weekend’s wet stuff.

There’s also stage racing for the first time at Bristol, and it’s natural to wonder if the usual bumping might take place a bit earlier than normal. Certainly, seeing drivers fight to get back to the green and white checkered flag at the quarter and halfway points of the race wouldn’t be a bad thing at all — unless cars get torn up in the process.

Still, a little unpredictability tends to make things even more fun, and with the points leaders starting up front thanks to Friday’s washout and time-tested Bristol spring winners like Kyle and Kurt Busch starting a few rows behind them, just about anything could happen on this April Monday. Add that to the usual Bristol Motor Speedway intrigue and it should be well worth sneaking away from work for a bit to check out the action.

Next: What are the stage lengths for the Food City 500 at Bristol?

FORECAST

Mercifully, the rain looks like it will leave the track alone for the most part, though it’s likely to be cloudy and overcast for the duration. The Weather Channel is calling for temperatures in the low 60s when the green flag drops and not much sunshine. There’s a possibility for a passing shower in the early evening, but hopefully the drivers can get in 500 laps before that is a serious issue.

THREE THINGS TO WATCH

• To stick or not to stick? Much has been made about the decision to use VHT on the track’s lower groove, making it the preferred way to get around. The reasoning might sound counterintuitive: there was actually two much side by side racing with not as much passing as you’d expect. But now the rains might have washed most of it away anyway, so no one knows how many grooves will be usable when the Food City 500 gets underway.
• Is this the week Joe Gibbs Racing looks like … well, Joe Gibbs Racing? We’re seven races into the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season and a JGR car has yet to end up in the winners circle. That’s unusual, and while it’s not time to panic by any means, it’s telling that Kyle Busch, who has won the Food City 500 three times, is one of the drivers who seems most concerned about the track and how it will act. That might not exactly fill JGR fans with confidence, but it would be strange to see the team not break through soon.
• Overtime could be lurking. Most drivers would tell you that 500 laps around Bristol is plenty, but this is a track where cautions really do tend to breed more cautions, especially late in a race. Over the last decade, the night race has never gone to overtime, but the daytime race in the spring has needed extra laps five times. Expect it to be a 50/50 proposition again today.

PREDICTION

It’s tempting to go with Kevin Harvick here, as he won the last Cup Series race at Bristol under similar conditions when the 2016 fall race was delayed a day due to weather. But the No. 4 seems a little snakebitten so far in 2017, so it’s hard to roll with Harvick until he finally breaks through.

That makes the pick here Brad Keselowski, who starts fourth, has won at Bristol multiple times in the past and just seems to have a crew chief and team who can handle any amount of uncertainty thrown at them.

And for a dark horse pick, why not Kasey Kahne? While he’s run okay in 2017, he’s especially good at Bristol and could be one of those drivers who lurks around in the top 15 and then surprises in the closing stages if misfortune takes out a couple of stronger cars.