NASCAR Cup Series

Paul Menard and the No. 21 Menards/Sylvania team hope to build on their speed from 2018 at Bristol Motor Speedway as they prepare for this weekend’s Food City 500 at the high-banked Tennessee track.

Chase Elliott on racing at Bristol: “I really enjoy racing at Bristol. I think it’s one of the coolest places we go to just environment-wise and then racetrack-wise. Just a lot of fun. Short-track racing in general is fun. I’ve enjoyed it. We’ve had some OK runs there. Feel like we had a really good car there last fall and had a realistic shot that I didn’t do a very good job of capitalizing on. I think it’s been kind of hit-or-miss. I remember the spring race of, I think, ’16 being really good and then this past fall race being pretty fast and kind of in-between I feel like has just been mediocre. So, it’s hard to get right. You can just be off a little bit one way or the other and it makes a big difference there.”

Short-track racing at "The Last Great Colosseum" awaits as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) heads to Tennessee this weekend for 500 miles of mayhem on the high-banked, .533-mile oval of Bristol Motor Speedway. The Food City 500 will mark the second short-track race of the 2019 season and also Corey LaJoie's 65th MENCS start. LaJoie and the GFR team look to have a better showing at the second short-track race after persevering with a 33rd-place finish at the first short-track of the season, competing in a back-up car after a practice incident.

Richard Petty Motorsports (RPM) announced today the renewed partnership with Blue-Emu. As part of the agreement, the No. 43 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 will carry the Blue-Emu brand as the primary partner in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) Food City 500 at the Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway on Sunday, April 7 with driver Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr.

Toyota Tops the Charts… Toyota Racing has had a stellar start to the 2019 NASCAR season, posting 13 victories across 18 NASCAR national series events. In total, Toyota drivers have led 47 percent of all laps run in the three national NASCAR series with Toyota also leading the manufacturer championship standings in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS), NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) and NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series (NGOTS). Toyota MENCS and NXS drivers head to Bristol Motor Speedway this week, where last spring Toyota swept both events with Kyle Busch and Ryan Preece winning in their respective series.

“I'm looking forward to having another chance to race at Bristol this weekend, especially right now. We’re coming off of a Top-15 finish last weekend and I feel that’s where we can race weekly without any mistakes. We’ve shown a lot of speed this year and Bristol is going to be a new challenge for everyone. We’re going to carry a lot of corner speed and handling will be important.

Roush Fenway Racing rolls through the Cumberland Gap to Johnson City, Tennessee, for the first time in 2019 as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) gets set to run 500 laps Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway. Roush Fenway has visited victory lane 18 times at The Last Great Colosseum across NASCAR’s three major touring series.

Defending Hollywood Casino 400 winner Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, who finished in the Top Five in both Kansas Speedway races in 2018, will headline Q&A sessions at Ignition Garage on Saturday, May 11.

DIBENEDETTO BY THE NUMBERS: In eight Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career starts at Bristol, Matt DiBenedetto has an average start of 28.9, an average finish of 20.6, and he’s completed 3,988 of 4,011 (99.4 percent) career laps at the half-mile high-banked track, making it one of his best tracks on the circuit.

Newman will make his 35th Cup start at Bristol on Sunday. In34 prior events, Newman has 18 top-10 finishes with two top-fives andan average finish of 15.7.