JUSTIN HALEY | KAZ GRALA
Bristol Advance
Event Overview
● Event: Bass Pro Shops Night Race (Round 29 of 36)
● Time/Date: 7:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Sept. 21
● Location: Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway
● Layout: .533-mile, concrete oval
● Laps/Miles: 500 laps/266.5 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 125 laps / Stage 2: 125 laps / Final Stage: 250 laps
● TV/Radio: USA / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Justin Haley, Driver of the No. 51 Pinnacle Home Improvements Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Justin Haley, driver of the No. 51 Pinnacle Home Improvements Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Rick Ware Racing (RWR), will make his fifth NASCAR Cup Series start at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race. When the series last visited Bristol on March 17, it was a race full of attrition due to unusual tire wear. Haley used pit strategy and tire conservation to work his way into the top-15 within the first 100 laps of the 500-lap race. Without a caution in the final 121 laps, Haley was forced to pit from 10th place under green for his final stop for fresh tires. He finished the race 17th, his second of 11 top-20 finishes this year.
● In his four previous Cup Series starts on the .533-mile, concrete oval, Haley has a best finish of 12th earned in September 2022. The 25-year-old also owns six NASCAR Xfinity Starts at Bristol with two top-10s – a seventh-place effort in his first Bristol start in April 2019, and a sixth-place finish in his last start in September 2021.
● Bristol is the site of Haley’s first career NASCAR national series start. As a 16-year-old on Aug. 19, 2015, he made his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut, starting 21st and finishing 14th against the likes of reigning Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, and the winningest driver in NASCAR history across all three national series, Kyle Busch.
● Pinnacle Home Improvements, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, is a direct-to-homeowner provider of home improvement services, with a focus on roof replacement, window replacement and other exterior services for existing single-family homes. With additional offices in Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Nashville, Tennessee, as well as Charlotte, North Carolina, the company’s existing service footprint covers a range of attractive Southeast U.S. markets, with planned expansion into new Southeastern markets.
Kaz Grala, Driver of the No. 15 Meat N’ Bone Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Kaz Grala, driver of the No. 15 Meat N’ Bone Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RWR, will make his second Cup Series start at Bristol in Saturday night’s race. In March, Grala started 33rd and drove to a 19th-place finish at The Last Great Colosseum.
● In two Xfinity Series starts at Bristol, Grala has a best finish of 10th earned last September. He’s finished no worse than 20th in eight of 13 Xfinity Series short-track starts.
● Grala has two Truck Series starts at Bristol with a best finish of 11th, earned in his first start there in August 2016. He also owns two top-five finishes at Bristol in the ARCA Menards Series East (2015 and 2016).
● Meat N’ Bone returns to the No. 15 RWR Ford Mustang Dark Horse after debuting with Grala at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon on June 23. Meat N’ Bone is an online butcher shop offering premium quality meats delivered locally and shipped nationally. Customers can order from over 300 products, including USDA Prime and Wagyu A5, and have it delivered fresh to their door. Meat N’ Bone also offers local pickup and a personalized retail experience in its boutiques.
Rick Ware Racing Notes
● The Progressive American Flat Track (AFT) series concluded its season last weekend at Lake Ozark Speedway in Eldon, Missouri. AFT Singles rider Kody Kopp earned his third-straight championship at just 19 years old. Kopp closed out the season with 339 points – 15 ahead of second place – to become the first rider to own three titles and the most race victories (22) in AFT Singles history. In addition to the record for most titles and most wins, Kopp holds either sole possession or a share of first place all-time in Short Track, Half-Mile, and single-season victories.
● The Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series heads back to zMAX Dragway in Concord, North Carolina, this weekend for the Carolina Nationals. RWR Top Fuel driver Clay Millican enters the event sixth in the standings after the first event of the Countdown to the Championship playoffs in Reading, Pennsylvania last Sunday. Millican earned a first-round win against Josh Hart, but was eliminated in the second round by points-leader Justin Ashley. Three weeks ago, the Drummonds, Tennessee, native earmed his seventh career win at the prestigious U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.
● Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age six when the third-generation racer began his driving career and has since spanned four wheels and two wheels on both asphalt and dirt. Competing in the SCCA Trans Am Series and other road-racing divisions led Ware to NASCAR in the early 1980s, where he finished third in his NASCAR debut – the 1983 Warner W. Hodgdon 300 NASCAR Grand American race at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway. More than a decade later, injuries would force Ware out of the driver seat and into fulltime team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that fields two fulltime entries in the NASCAR Cup Series while simultaneously campaigning successful teams in the Top Fuel class of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, Progressive American Flat Track and FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX), where RWR won the 2022 SX2 championship with rider Shane McElrath.
Justin Haley, Driver Q&A
You ran well at Bristol in March, even with the unpredictable tire wear. Now that everyone has had time to think through that situation, would you be more comfortable if tire wear was once again a major factor?
“It’s not really a comfortable situation to be in, having to conserve tires all race, but I feel like I’ve always kind of taken care of my car and tires. I think we did a good job of that last time and it was just timing of cautions that worked against us. If we’re dealing with the same thing this time, I think everyone will have a better idea of what to do, which also evens the playing field a little.”
Bristol is the first cutoff race for the playoff drivers. How do you run your race and try to get the best finish without potentially impacting the playoff battle?
“Thankfully, Bristol is always a little chaotic, so it’s not a new or different way of racing there. You have to be aware of what’s going on around you at all times. You don’t want to get in the way, but even trying to do that could lead to losing several spots. So, yeah, you do the best you can to not get in the middle of it but it’s still a race with 30-something cars on track and we all want to do well.”
Kaz Grala, Driver Q&A
What are your thoughts on Bristol after making your first Cup Series start there in March?
“I really enjoy short-track racing and, with one race at Bristol under my belt, it helps that you have to have similar strategy there no matter what you’re racing. The tire wear in the spring definitely threw everyone for a loop, but it didn’t necessarily change how you race Bristol. You still have to find your rhythm and what works best, then try to do that every lap.”
Knowing that Goodyear is using the tire compound from the spring race, how do you prepare?
“I think you have to go into the race expecting the same thing and maybe hoping that’s not how it goes. Track position is important, but so is making tires last, so I think you prepare for it like it’s any other short-track race. You try to stay out of trouble, take care of your equipment and tires, and get the best finish possible.”
