On-Track Incident Ends Matt Tifft's Day Early at Bristol Motor Speedway "We had a strong run going in our No. 2 Tunity Chevrolet Camaro, running in the top 10 during Stage 1 before the No. 7 car spun us out. I'm not sure what he was thinking to be that aggressive so early on. "
COLE CUSTER, No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang – “We were pretty fast at the start and I made a mistake speeding on pit road and that put us behind. We just didn’t have anything after about 40 laps. We worked hard and I thought we had a lot better shot at it, but we’ll move on to the next one.” YOU BACK TO THE TOP FIVE, BUT COULDN’T GET ALL THE WAY THERE. “I think we were a third-place car on the short run, but all of those guys were in the way and you just get stuck. It’s part of it, but we’ll come back better.”
NASCAR and track officials have moved up the start time for Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway to 1 p.m. ET (FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) because of the threat of inclement weather.
Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 34 Love’s Travel Stop Ford Fusion, will start ninth in tomorrow’s scheduled running of the Food City 500. That’s a personal-best starting spot for McDowell and Front Row Motorsports at Bristol Motor Speedway.
For most of this season, Menard and the No. 21 team have been fast in the first of three rounds of knock-out qualifying but struggled in the second. On Friday at Bristol, they were consistently fast throughout all three rounds.
BRAD KESELOWSKI, No. 2 Discount Tire Ford Fusion – HOW IS THE TRACK? “It’s slick. Every car that runs the track gets a little faster, so it’s the fun gamesmanship of trying to be on the track and make all that work.”
KYLE LARSON, NO. 42 MCDONALD’S CAMARO ZL1 – Qualified 6th - ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THAT RUN? “Yeah, I mean it’s okay I guess. You would always like to be a little bit better. I don’t know what the fast guys ran there at the end, but I was just a little too tight in the center of the corner and that would make me a little too late back to the throttle. I think that is where most of our speed was.”
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Skittles Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing - Do you look forward to racing at Bristol after winning at Texas last weekend? “It’s always a good chance to get to a race track coming off a win. Coming to Bristol, one of our best places after last weekend – certainly a positive. Have to understand that it’s a completely different track, completely different circumstances and what’s going on. We’re going to do everything we can to try to back that up and try to win again. We’ll see what happens here with Bristol this weekend.”
ERIK JONES, No. 20 DeWalt Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing - How excited are you to be here at Bristol this weekend? “Well, I’m always excited to come to Bristol in anything really and you know last year it was a place I was excited to get to. I had a good run here in the spring. We didn’t finish where we wanted, but then in the fall had a really really fast car that had a good shot to win."
Trevor Bayne, driver of the No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion, is racing on his home track this weekend in Bristol. The Knoxville, TN, native came to the infield media center before practice to talk about this weekend’s race.
Whether it involves a car, truck, or motorcycle, speeding significantly increases the likelihood of serious injuries for drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists.
