Food City 500 Fact Sheet
Owing to the fact that there’s a heap of vittles at all those campsites: Food City 500. (Of course, there is a grocery-store chain by that name in these parts.)
A banner calls it The Last Colosseum: Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
A bit of an edge: Kyle Busch has won four of the past six races here, but Brad Keselowski won the most recent.
What’s it take to win here? Aggressive driving isn’t rewarded quite as often as in days of yore. An ability to stay out of trouble and have the car relatively intact for the final 50 laps still comes in handy, though.
The hunch here: His teammate (Greg Biffle) is on the pole, but Matt Kenseth has won twice here and has five straight top-10 finishes (and seven of the past eight).
The interesting, the ironic or the wacky:
Three active drivers – Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch and Jeff Gordon – have five victories at Bristol.
When Darrell Waltrip talks about what it takes to win here, it’s on good authority. He won a record 12 Bristol races.
Tony Stewart’s Bristol record is erratic. He’s won here, but a runner-up finish in 2010 is his only finish better than 17th in the past six visits.
A.J. Allmendinger, who qualified second, has never finished better than 12th at Bristol.
Informative, humorous or quotable in some other sense:
“It’s such a unique race track. One of a kind.” – Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I always race for the win, and I don’t think about it when the race is going on, and I’m not thinking about what if I’d had one more point last year.” – Carl Edwards.
“There isn’t a car more scrutinized in this garage area than the No. 48. It’s been that way for the last decade.” – Jimmie Johnson.
“We’ve been really close and really competitive here but just haven’t gotten a race win.” – Denny Hamlin.
