MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Sept. 14, 2026) – Saturday night racing in September at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway means fans keep one eye on the race and another scrolling college football scores on their iPhone. In that respect, they’re not too different from the NASCAR Cup Series drivers navigating Bristol’s high banks and short straights, who spend as much time looking at their rearview camera as they do out the windshield of their 3,400-pound racecar.
Fans, of course, get to do this while wearing shorts and a T-shirt with a cold beverage in their hand. The drivers, meanwhile, are wrapped in Nomex firesuits, sweating buckets, their hands firmly on the steering wheel as they lap the .533-mile oval in about 16 seconds at an average speed of 125 mph.
“Bristol is 500 laps of chaos,” said Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Rocket Doctor Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing. “To be able to walk out of Bristol with a good result is always very rewarding, because you know how hard it is to achieve.”
With corners banked between 24 and 28 degrees connected by 650-foot-long straights, Bristol demands a sustained level of attention that makes racing there a test of mental stamina. Former Cup Series driver Kyle Petty likened racing at Bristol to “flying a jet fighter in a gymnasium.”
“Even though the distance at Bristol is not very long – a little more than 266 miles – 500 laps there is a long time,” Ware said. “The mental endurance it takes to run at 110 percent and be on your A-game from start to finish is key. You have to be laser-focused on hitting your marks, but also ready to adapt.
“Bristol is not like a traditional short track where the bottom lane is dominant throughout the race. You’re going to see people racing the middle line and the high line, and the track conditions are going to play a big part in that. You need to be on the wheel and stay ahead of those changing track conditions, and really pay attention to tire wear and what you’re feeling during the course of a run.”
While the racing at Bristol is physical, with plenty of bent fenders and hurt feelings, the physicality inside the racecar is surprisingly less so.
“With the banking at Bristol, it actually makes a race there a little less physical,” Ware said. “You feel more vertical Gs at Bristol, and that kind of holds you in place.”
Fans had plenty to hold their attention during last year’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, with action throughout the three-hour affair while the home state Tennessee Vols were in a grudge match against the rival Georgia Bulldogs.
“We had a good car in last year’s night race at Bristol. It was fast and we executed well, but the uncontrollable aspects of the race kind of got away from us at the end,” Ware said. “The result wasn’t reflective of the effort.”
That effort gets reprised beginning on Friday with practice at 4:30 p.m. EDT followed by qualifying at 5:40 p.m. TruTV and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide live coverage of both. The Bass Pro Shops Night Race goes green on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with flag-to-flag coverage delivered by USA Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
About Rick Ware Racing:
Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age 6 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’s seat and into full-time team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with his wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that competes full-time in the elite 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, FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX) and zMAX CARS Tour.
