After a wild weekend at Bristol full of beating, banging, and tempers flaring, the Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series heads back out west to take on the fifth race of the season at the two mile Auto Club Speedway of Southern California.
From the intro songs to the beating and the banging that comes with short-track racing, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 53rd annual Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
No other team currently in NASCAR has as much talent and young superstars coming up through NASCAR’s ranks than Joe Gibbs Racing. JGR has lots of young talent and a potential fourth Cup ride which could be driven by any of JGR’s new and young talent.
From the racing is rubbing on the track to the near misses on a very narrow pit road, the Bristol Motor Speedway lived up to its reputation and the Food City 500 delivered an extremely entertaining Sunday afternoon in Tennessee's Thunder Valley. The unique Bristol, "have at it boys". mentality began the moment the green flag fell on the 43 cars and continued well past the end of the race with a good old fashioned skirmish that resembled a World Wrestling Entertainment pay per view
After taking the lead on a late race restart with 45 laps to go from Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne would pull out ahead of the field to win the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. It marks his first victory of the season, and second top 10 in a row after finishing to Matt Kenseth last week.
For the first time in his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career, Kasey Kahne drove his way to victory lane at Thunder Valley. After taking the lead from Brad Keselowski with 45 laps to go, Busch took off and never looked back.
The 2012 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Champion and Sonoco Rookie of the Year, Kyle Larson, battled Kyle Busch Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway in the all time second closest Nationwide finish at the “World’s Fastest Half Mile.”
The 26-year-old Ferguson from Lincolnton, North Carolina, will make his second career Truck start with Kaulig Racing more than a month after making his Truck debut at Bristol.
Spire Motorsports has earned one win and three top five finishes. Rajah Caruth took the checkered flag in last year's Rackley Roofing 200 after leading 61 laps.
In 12 previous NASCAR Cup Series starts at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway, Spire Motorsports has two top-five finishes with a best result of second earned twice by Zane Smith (2024) and Carson Hocevar (2025).
