BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) — Even with a NASCAR Cup Series championship at stake, Ryan Blaney enjoys mixing it up on a rough-and-tumble track such as Bristol Motor Speedway.
“Everyone likes hard racing,” the Team Penske driver said. “This is why we do it and race for every spot you can get. It’s different if you get run over. That’s a little over the line, but it’s all situational. That’s why people come to the races and watch on TV. They want to see drivers
going 100% all the time for everything that they have trying to win a championship.”
There was no shortage of drivers banging fenders during the first two races of the Chase, the 10-race run for the championship that NASCAR resurrected this year after a 12-season absence.
Of the 16 drivers eligible for the title, 10 had problems during the Sept. 6 opener at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, and 14 were involved in incidents this past Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway near St. Louis, Missouri.
Blaney finished 35th as one of five drivers who experienced brake failures on the 1.25-mile track formerly known as Gateway. The majority of the trouble came from crashes that contributed to a season-high and track-record 18 cautions.
“Everybody hit everything out here today,” Bubba Wallace said after being involved in two crashes and finishing 14th. “Super frustrating and embarrassing for us as Cup drivers. You can’t help brake problems, but when it’s just running over people. I was a part of multiple, and it was frustrating.”
Race winner Kyle Larson was among those affected by the wrecks that often occurred on restarts as drivers refused to give an inch.
“That just shows the intensity of every point,” said Carson Hocevar, who joked afterward that he belied his aggressive reputation by avoiding all the Gateway pileups. “A lot of those guys wouldn’t be racing like that for eighth. I’m sure everybody’s starting to panic any time a Chase guy’s in front of you.”
The dynamics of the Chase are much different from the 2014-25 seasons of the elimination playoffs, which featured the points being reset three times in the final 10 races. The 2026 title will be determined on cumulative points during the Chase, putting an emphasis on finishing well but also on scoring in the stages — the two predetermined sections during every race in which the top 10 are awarded points.
“Everybody in the Chase understands how important points are, whether it’s stage points or finishing position,” Blaney said. “Some of those (Gateway) accidents at the end on restarts were guys who had to finish well to make up for the points that they missed out on in the first two stages.”
The tension will be turned up another notch Saturday night at Bristol, a 0.533-mile high-banked concrete track that is shaped like a cereal bowl and is famous for stoking tempers within its tight confines.
Massive tire wear issues have cropped up in recent seasons, causing the yellow flag to wave like clockwork. In last September’s race at Bristol, tire failures were the chief reason for 137 caution laps — the most for any Cup Series race since 167 laps under yellow at Bristol in July 1965.
Though he has led more laps at Bristol (775) than any other track, Blaney still is seeking his first win there and is wary of making predictions for 500 laps in the Chase.
“Everyone’s pushing for every little bit and filling every hole that’s available on the racetrack,” Blaney said. “That’s what it should be.”
A late afternoon rain shower led to Cup qualifying being scrubbed, setting the Bristol lineup by a statistical formula based on the points standings and the previous race’s results.
Larson will start on the pole position alongside Joey Logano.
Denny Hamlin, who leads the Chase by nine points over Hamlin, will start third, followed by William Byron and Hocevar.
Blaney will start 29th, the lowest of the 16 Chase drivers.
Ford Racing recently announced the inaugural Veterans Day Classic, an exhibition race Nov. 11 on the Daytona International Speedway road course with six teams representing the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. The 12-driver field, which has yet to be fully announced but will include Cup champions Brad Keselowski and Logano, will race in Mustangs at an event jointly held with NASCAR and IMSA, its sports car sanctioning body.
Front Row Motorsports’ Noah Gragson is looking forward to being among a handful of NASCAR drivers racing against veterans of Formula 1 and sports cars in a format reminiscent of the International Race of Champions that matched drivers from worldwide motorsports disciplines decades ago.
“It would be great to have some type of series like that back again where you could kind of cross-collaborate and get everybody into the same vehicle,” Gragson said.
Ty Gibbs, who won the April 12 race at Bristol for his first career Cup victory, will be sporting a paint scheme on his No. 54 Toyota that honors the legacy of Kyle Busch, the two-time Cup Series champion who died four months ago.
During his 15 seasons at Joe Gibbs Racing, the team owned by Ty’s grandfather, Busch swept the NASCAR triple-header weekend twice at Bristol in 2010 and ’17.
Larson (+400) is the favorite for Sunday’s race, followed by Blaney (+500) and Hamlin (+600). … Logano will be making his 497th start Saturday with Team Penske, breaking Rusty Wallace’s mark for the team owned by Roger Penske. Logano and Wallace are tied with 37 wins for Penske. … Hamlin will be making his 750th Cup start, becoming the 15th driver to reach the milestone.
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