By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Soon after trading punches with an uncharacteristically irate Ryan Blaney, Carson Hocevar declared to TV cameras that, in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, fans “got an old-school Bristol show here.”
Yes—and no. The post-race brawl at Bristol Motor Speedway certainly was old-school, at least in terms of the two principals. As soon as Hocevar parked his car on pit lane after a third-place run, Blaney strode toward the Spire Motorsports driver and gave him a shove.
Hocevar responded with a glancing right-hand punch that sent Blaney’s cap flying. Hocevar’s second punch landed squarely and knocked the Team Penske driver off-balance into the scrum of crew members and officials surrounding the protagonists.
Blaney got to his feet, broke free of No. 12 crew members trying to restrain him and charged through the melee to fire a left hook at Hocevar’s face. NASCAR officials intervened and ended the fisticuffs.
What fans didn’t see was the respective crews whaling on each other, something that surely would have happened in the old days. The prohibition against crew members joining the fray is one of NASCAR’s strongest taboos, and the teams exercised admirable restraint as Blaney and Hocevar engaged in their bare-knuckle brawl.
The wreck that sent Blaney past his boiling point certainly was reminiscent of the late Dale Earnhardt roughing up Terry Labonte for the win in 1999. Blaney passed Hocevar for second place on Lap 457. The next time around, Blaney tried to block Hocevar’s line into Turn 1.
Hocevar stayed in the gas, turned Blaney’s No. 12 Ford and finished him off in the corner. The violent impact with the outside wall knocked Blaney out of the race in 33rd place and dropped him to sixth in the Chase standings, 52 points out of the lead.
As he left the infield care center, Blaney vowed that “something is going to happen.” He was true to his word, calling to mind the Bristol of old when emotions ran high and tempers flared into violence.
There was an audible gasp from the packed grandstands when Blaney’s car hit the wall on Lap 458. Though NASCAR tracks no longer publish attendance figures, the crowd was massive and the atmosphere electric.
When fans in the stands waved yellow towels on Lap 18 to honor the memory of Bristol maven Kyle Busch—as Ty Gibbs drove a Toyota sporting Busch’s familiar M&M’s paint scheme—the feeling was reminiscent of Dale Jarrett’s farewell tour in 2008, when a card section of 35,000 spectators expressed appreciation for DJ’s accomplishments in the NASCAR Cup Series.
More than anything, “old-school Bristol” is an abstract idea that blossoms under the lights on a summer night in rural Tennessee. On Saturday, that’s what happened at Thunder Valley. The action on and off the track revived visceral feelings and created indelible memories.
The objective reality was somewhat different. “Old Bristol,” which earned its reputation as a one-lane short track long before the 23-year-old Hocevar was born, is a thing of the past. Progressive banking and the grinding of the top concrete lane in 2012 changed the track, creating the possibility of at least two workable lines and the prospect of side-by-side racing.
With “old Bristol,” passing was difficult and typically required use of the front bumper to move a slower car out of the bottom lane. Passing is still difficult, but superior cars nevertheless were able to overtake in both the top and bottom lanes on Saturday night.
Emblematic was the winning move in the final seven laps, when Joey Logano emerged from a knot of four drivers fighting for the lead and took the checkered flag ahead of Kyle Larson, Hocevar, Christopher Bell and Gibbs.
“What else would you want in a race?” Logano asked rhetorically. “That was exciting from every different angle.
“The fans, you can hear them. I think that was about as awesome as it gets.”
One thing could have made it better—greater tire fall-off. Blaney, who led a race-high 202 laps, got more than 150 laps out of his tires after pitting with 28 laps left in Stage 1. In Saturday’s race, clean air and track position trumped fresh rubber.
But in fairness to Goodyear, predicting the performance of tires at Bristol in recent years has been harder than conjuring up the correct Powerball numbers.
What fans will remember about this Bristol race, however, is a more impressionistic landscape—Logano’s dramatic charge to the win, Blaney’s breathtaking wreck, the fight that followed, the moving tribute to Kyle Busch.
What this race had was a certain undefinable, sparkling ambiance that will make NASCAR aficionados eager to return to Thunder Valley as soon as the Cup Series does.
