Following Denny Hamlin's second straight win this season at Darlington, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series made the trip to Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday for the running of the Food City 500. It was the ninth race of the season and the first of two trips to Thunder Valley before a return visit in September for the Round of 16 cutoff race in the playoffs.
Hendrick Motorsports' Alex Bowman led the field to the green and led the first 39 laps before teammate Kyle Larson overtook him. Larson would go on to win a caution-free Stage 1 at Bristol. It was the first time the opening stage has gone uninterrupted at the track since the beginning of stage racing in 2017.
The only caution for incident came out on Lap 178 when Shane van Gisbergen and Cody Ware spun in Turn 2 after getting together. Larson would cruise to his 66th career stage win, tying Martin Truex Jr. for the most in series history. The race concluded with a 235-lap run to the finish and did not have much drama toward the front as a familiar outcome presented itself at Bristol.
NASCAR Cup Series: Who won the Food City 500 at Bristol?
After retaking the lead with 62 laps to go following a green-flag pit cycle, Larson, who led a race-high 411 laps, pulled away to win by 2.25 seconds over Hamlin, who was trying to join his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Christopher Bell as a three-time winner this season. It is the second consecutive race at Bristol that Larson has led more than 400 laps after pacing the field for 462 laps in last season's playoff race. The Bristol win is Larson's third at the track, the 31st win of his career. and his second win this weekend after taking the checkered flag in Saturday's Xfinity Series race.
Full Food City 500 finishing order and points results
Food City 500 finishing position | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|
Winner | Kyle Larson | 60 |
2nd | Denny Hamlin | 50 |
3rd | Ty Gibbs | 40 |
4th | Chase Briscoe | 35 |
5th | Ryan Blaney | 39 |
6th | William Byron | 31 |
7th | Ross Chastain | 30 |
8th | Christopher Bell | 42 |
9th | AJ Allmendinger | 30 |
10th | Austin Dillon | 27 |
11th | Carson Hocevar | 39 |
12th | Josh Berry | 25 |
13th | Justin Haley | 37 |
14th | Kyle Busch | 23 |
15th | Chase Elliott | 22 |
16th | Brad Keselowski | 21 |
17th | Austin Cindric | 20 |
18th | Tyler Reddick | 20 |
19th | Bubba Wallace | 18 |
20th | Ryan Preece | 17 |
21st | John Hunter Nemechek | 16 |
22nd | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | 18 |
23rd | Noah Gragson | 14 |
24th | Joey Logano | 13 |
25th | Chris Buescher | 12 |
26th | Erik Jones | 11 |
27th | Zane Smith | 10 |
28th | Riley Herbst | 9 |
29th | Cole Custer | 8 |
30th | Michael McDowell | 7 |
31st | Jesse Love | 0 |
32nd | Ty Dillon | 5 |
33rd | Daniel Suarez | 4 |
34th | Corey LaJoie | 3 |
35th | Todd Gilliland | 2 |
36th | Cody Ware | 1 |
37th | Alex Bowman | 17 |
38th | Shane van Gisbergen | 1 |
39th | Josh Bilicki | 0 |
The NASCAR Cup Series will head into an off weekend for Easter before going all the way to the championship race at Phoenix in November. The next stop is 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway for the running of the Jack Link's 500 on Sunday, April 27 (3 p.m. ET, Fox, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Tyler Reddick is the defending race winner.