It’s time to put a nice little bow on the events of this past weekend in Thunder Valley.
At the end of every season, I make a list of the 10 best races of the season. After eight, yesterday’s Food City 500 would be at the top. It was a spectacular race. I would even say it’s been the best since the grinding down of the top lane back in 2012. Sitting in the media center watching the event, I was thinking to myself, “This is Bristol. This is Bristol at its finest.”
The fact that we had such a fantastic race makes the lack of hindquarters in attendance even more baffling. We’ve had a run of truly great races at Bristol since August of 2012, and yet there’s still people out there who refuse to let go of the past and accept that this Bristol is far superior to Bristol of old. I’m sorry you don’t get the wrecks like you did back then even though we had plenty of wrecks yesterday with 14 of the 15 cautions being for wrecks. Don’t tell me it’s not the “lack of wrecks” because it is. I’ve studied the numbers inside and out for over a year now and the only metric that’s down is the number of wrecks. The number of lead changes and different leaders is comparable, and even over in many cases, to “old” Bristol.
I’ll get off this by saying if you weren’t in attendance yesterday, you have no right to complain about the attendance.
After falling back to 40th on lap 1 after making an unscheduled stop for battery issues, Dale Earnhardt Jr. rallied himself back to a runner-up finish in his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Not too long ago, this would’ve caused Earnhardt to just give up and ride around until the end. The fact that he kept his eye on the prize, got himself back on the lead lap and finished second is quite impressive. When asked how he stopped himself from panicking, he said because he turned 40.
“You know, as I got older, I tried harder to enjoy what I’m doing, and not get really upset and too out of shape when things aren’t going our way, plus I know Greg and them guys are on the pit box trying everything they can, and for me to ‑‑ they’re the only ones I’m going to be able to yell at, so for me to ‑‑ it doesn’t do any good to be hollering at them or upset or just lose your mind, and the over‑the‑wall guys especially, we don’t really spend a ton of time with the over‑the‑wall guys, and they’re real sensitive,” Earnhardt said. “They’re big ol’ guys and athletes, but they’ve got big hearts, too, so you can’t be screaming and coming unglued because they don’t want to work for people like that.
“Yeah, just trying to have more fun and enjoy it,” he added. “We had a little trouble early, and it just made today more difficult and made the challenge more fun, made it a bigger challenge than it was, and to run second, it’s a great feeling to come back from what we did. It’s something to smile about.”
I’ll end on Matt DiBenedetto. Yesterday, I reported on his sixth-place finish like I would with any driver. I gave his finish, added some quotes and said where he was in points. But I didn’t understand the emotion from DiBenedetto until I read a story on him by Dustin Long of NBC Sports.
He started in the XFINITY Series at 17 as a development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing thanks to his success in the lower ranks. He ran seven races for them from 2009 to 2010 but was left on the outside looking after sponsorship went by the wayside because of the recession.
After a season in the K&N East Series, he worked his way back to the XFINITY Series. But he was with a team that was starting and parking races.
“I thought my career was over countless times,’’ DiBenedetto said yesterday while being congratulated by Denny Hamlin. “I got down, but I kept on digging deep. I said, ‘If I don’t give this everything I have, I’ll regret this the rest of my life.’ I don’t ever want to think back and say, ‘I wonder if I could have been racing with those guys.'”
Some of the drivers he finished ahead of include Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch. Five of those names are champions in the Sprint Cup Series and all seven have won at least once at Bristol.
Runs like DiBenedetto’s is showing me that Bristol is starting to be a bit more of an equalizer track. What I mean is that it’s starting to become a bit more of a track where drivers who normally wouldn’t even sniff the top-10 could realistically run well and possibly win.
In the spring of 2014, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. earned a career-best finish of second and Aric Almirola earned a then career-best third-place finish that he would best later that season with a win at Daytona.
Last April, Danica Patrick earned a top-10 finish in a decent run at Bristol.
Yesterday, Trevor Bayne earned his second career top-five finish in a No. 6 Ford of a Roush Fenway Racing organization that appears to be turning the ship around.
I’m not talking anywhere near the degree of Daytona or Talladega. I just mean some drivers are running well here who don’t anywhere else.
That’s my take on this weekend. This week, we head north on I-95 to race on Sunday afternoon at Richmond International Raceway.
