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Somewhere under the thick red haze floating above Bristol Motor Speedway, Joey Logano took to the checkered flag for the first NASCAR Cup Series race on a dirt road in 50 years.
He couldn’t see much – visibility was near zero during that dust storm on Monday – but Logano clung to the familiar lower lane around the arenas to retrieve the checkered flag on this NASCAR experience.
Logano got a jump over Denny Hamlin in resumption of extra time to claim his third career victory at Bristol. But that wasn’t the old Bristol, the track had been covered with 2,300 trucks of red dirt from Tennessee so NASCAR could add a dirt track to the Cup schedule for the first time since 1970.
“How about Bristol on clay, guys! It’s amazing,” Logano told the crowd, a reduced capacity of around 30,000 fans.
“There is nothing quite like winning in Bristol, but putting it down and being the first to do it is very special.”
Logano became the seventh race winner in seven races this season and gave Team Penske back-to-back wins. Ryan Blaney won in a Penske Ford last week.
Logano’s victory ended a weekend of uncertainty and even hysteria as NASCAR launched this race through the dirt. It was broadcast partner Fox who wanted a clay race on the Cup schedule and Speedway Motorsports, looking for new energy in their beloved Bristol arenas, said he would take the race.
NASCAR therefore attributed the experience to Bristol, bypassing dozens of quality dirt tracks established across the country. The snub spread to Tony Stewart, who had successfully staged seven Truck Series races at his Eldora Speedway dirt track in Ohio, but who had never been considered for a Cup race.
Marcus Smith, CEO of Speedway Motorsports, insisted Bristol was up to the challenge and told The Associated Press he spent nearly $ 2 million to make that dream come true.
Smith was pleased with the buzz generated by the event, even as NASCAR huddled for solutions to the extreme dust, poor tire durability and changing weather conditions that made the build-up a muddy mess. When race day finally arrived, torrential nighttime rains flooded the Bristol ground and NASCAR had to postpone Sunday’s show for a day.
Despite all the dismay, Smith remained optimistic and headed for the track Monday morning convinced that this dirt project was a success. The end product was twofold – Martin Truex Jr. won his first Truck Series race in 15 years to open the day – then Logano closed the Cup race with overtime victory.
Everyone seemed happy, and even before the end of the race, the track announced over the public address system that Bristol would be rolling on gravel again next season.
“This is only my fourth clay race so I had a lot of fun trying to figure it out,” said Logano. “I was having fun running, trying to find the right lanes, moving around.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., a dirt racing veteran, was second for his best result of the season. Hamlin, who last raced on gravel in karting at the age of 8, was third.
Daniel Suarez was the best fourth of the season for the new Trackhouse Racing team, which is partly owned by Pitbull. Suarez’s first gravel try came in Friday’s practice and he figured it out so quickly that he led his first laps of the season – 58 of them in all – and even pushed Logano out of his way. to resume the point.
But Logano took over with 61 laps to go and was not challenged until the final restart when the race went to a two-lap overtime.
It was impossible to handicap this first race on clay because the teams had no idea how to prepare and the drivers had a very variable experience. Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell, two of the nation’s top clay racers, were the favorites and the race might have gone differently if the two hadn’t crashed 54 laps into the race.
Seven of the Cup regulars entered the Truck Series race just to save time on an unfamiliar surface, a decision that earned them two more practice sessions as well as Monday’s previous race. Truex, a clay novice, led the field to win the trucks and led a record 126 of 253 laps.
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Suarez was the other benefactor of adding the truck to his schedule with a revolutionary finish for his brand new team. Among the so-called dirt experts, it was Stenhouse with an understated finish that delivered.
Ryan Newman, who in recent years has started to run a little on gravel with some consistency, finished fifth this season.
There had been serious pre-race concerns that the 3,400-pound Cup cars were too heavy for Goodyear tires on the dirt surface. Friday’s suit, in addition to lifting some serious dirt, caused tire wear on the cords as deep ruts developed on the track.
The rain that washed away Sunday’s races also swept away much of the problems, and a sleepless night for the Bristol track preparation team prepared the surface for the double. It wasn’t perfect and the dust posed an absolute visibility hazard to the drivers, so much so that halfway through the race, NASCAR ordered all restarts to be in a single lane to mitigate the sudden explosion. of airborne dirt.
“You can’t see. It’s honestly the biggest problem,” said Aric Almirola after being hit by several cars in an early wreckage. “In clay races you don’t have a windshield in front of you so you can do a tearout. We can’t reach out and pull a tear off our windshield so you can’t see anything. . Everyone just stack up because you can’t see. “
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