“It’s (dirt) Bristol baby!” It’s the moment racing fans had marked on their calendars. This weekend NASCAR will be racing the Food City Dirt Race at Bristol – the first dirt race that the Cup Series has run since 1970. The Cup and the Truck Series will each run four 15-lap races to qualify for the lineup in the race on Sunday. The race will split into 75-150-100 and will be aired on FOX at 3:30 pm ET.
Are Cup Cars Good on Dirt?
NASCAR history at @BMSupdates. Friday saw the first NASCAR Cup Series competition on dirt since 1970. pic.twitter.com/GeBM66rrhz
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 27, 2021
Over the years, we’ve seen the Truck Series run at Eldora every season and they were always great. But between the two, although both NASCAR Series, they perform very differently from each other. That’s mostly due to the different packages. With that in mind, I was worried the cars wouldn’t have much slide in them or they would all have to run the same line. From what I saw during practice, I think these cars work great on dirt! It doesn’t seem difficult to get these things to slide on dirt and we got to see a lot of cars run different lines all the way around.
Ones to Watch
https://t.co/LmOhX9NxkQ pic.twitter.com/chfTRgNI4s
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) March 26, 2021
As soon as the Bristol dirt race was announced, fans and analysts alike started looking at Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson as the drivers to beat. Both have already won this season and Larson is looking especially fast these past couple of weeks. Honestly, it’s still a possibility that one of them makes it through all the qualifying races unscathed and lines up front. Hell, both of them could hold down the front row for the race. After practice, Alex Bowman and Ryan Blaney were the fastest. It really looked like they could run any line and have speed. Kyle Busch seemed to run the high side up in the marbles pretty well and come race time he could use that to his advantage early.
