Official Release

Erik Jones started from the pole at Bristol Motor Speedway in his No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Toyota and led the most laps in the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race but eventually “settled” for a NASCAR Cup Series career-best second-place finish.

Cut Tire Ends Austin Dillon's Race Early in the Dow Energy and Water Chevrolet "From my perspective, we were running really good and all of the sudden the left-rear tire went flat. I don't know what happened. I don't know if we had contact on the restart or if our track bar broke."

Trevor Bayne, driver of the No. 6 Tim Duerr EcoBoost Ford Fusion, overcame a flat right-front tire sustained on Lap 353 and utilized a strong final restart on Lap 421 in Saturday evening’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) event at Bristol Motor Speedway to improve nine positions and earn a seventh-place finish. The result is Bayne’s second-consecutive top-10 finish and his second at his home track of Bristol.

Ryan Blaney started and finished the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway in 10th place for his best finish at the half-mile Tennessee motorsports colosseum and his ninth top-10 result of the season.

Camry driver Kyle Busch completed his second-career Bristol sweep, winning all three NASCAR national series races at the 0.533-mile track following a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory on Saturday night.

RYAN NEWMAN, NO. 31 CATERPILLAR CHEVROLET SS – Finished 6th “I got too fast on pit road, which cost us, but guys did a good job in the pits which is a nice change. Overall, I’m proud of the team effort. Fought hard and kind of got lucky there with the tires. I don’t know that we had a sixth-place car, but we did tonight.”

KURT BUSCH – No. 41 Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford Fusion – “We’ve been struggling with the VHT on the bottom, so I just knew we needed to wait and wait and wait, and I was hopeful at lap 250 that it would come to us. I pushed it too hard then and got some right-front tire damage on the fender. We had to work through that, but I think at the end we got in position because Tony Gibson made a good call and put us on fresher tires than the competition and it was the old fun Bristol for me. So I’m really proud of this Monster Energy Ford -- to be first in class, to get a top-five in my 600th start, and to see the lead with 50 to go.”

Kyle Busch completed the second leg in a potential Bristol Motor Speedway tripleheader sweep, rallying to victory in the NASCAR XFINITY Series on Friday night.

Fresh off his win last weekend in Michigan, Kyle Larson set the pace for Team Chevy with a second-place qualifying run in his No. 42 Huggies Little Movers Chevrolet SS at Bristol Motor Speedway. He will start on the outside front row for the 500-lap Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race, Round 24 of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS). This marks the 14th top-10 start of the season thus far for Larson, and his second in eight races at the track known as the ‘World’s Fastest Half-Mile’.

ARIC ALMIROLA – No. 43 Smithfield Ford Fusion – “I was loose. We fought that all day. I was just really loose on the bottom. My car is really good up top. I thought in race trim we were a top-10 car actually, but we switched over to qualifying and we just can’t get qualified. The car is just out of the track and really loose. I don’t know. We’ve got to do some homework to get qualified better. It’s certainly not ideal to be starting the race that far back, but I’m pretty happy with our Smithfield Ford Fusion in race trim and I’ve got a lot of cars to pass.”