{"id":61000,"date":"2026-09-20T23:54:04","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T04:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=61000"},"modified":"2026-09-21T08:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:59:15","slug":"did-saturdays-night-race-really-harken-to-the-bristol-of-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/20\/did-saturdays-night-race-really-harken-to-the-bristol-of-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Saturday\u2019s Night Race really harken to the Bristol of old?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

BRISTOL, Tenn. \u2014 Soon after trading punches with an uncharacteristically irate Ryan Blaney, Carson Hocevar declared to TV cameras that, in Saturday\u2019s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, fans \u201cgot an old-school Bristol show here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

BRISTOL, TENNESSEE – SEPTEMBER 19: Carson Hocevar, driver of the #77 Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet, (L) and Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 WABASH Ford, get into an altercation after the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on September 19, 2026 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Yes\u2014and 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.<\/p>\n

Hocevar responded with a glancing right-hand punch that sent Blaney\u2019s cap flying. Hocevar\u2019s second punch landed squarely and knocked the Team Penske driver off-balance into the scrum of crew members and officials surrounding the protagonists.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s face. NASCAR officials intervened and ended the fisticuffs.<\/p>\n

What fans didn\u2019t 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\u2019s strongest taboos, and the teams exercised admirable restraint as Blaney and Hocevar engaged in their bare-knuckle brawl.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s line into Turn 1.<\/p>\n

Hocevar stayed in the gas, turned Blaney\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

As he left the infield care center, Blaney vowed that \u201csomething is going to happen.\u201d He was true to his word, calling to mind the Bristol of old when emotions ran high and tempers flared into violence.<\/p>\n

There was an audible gasp from the packed grandstands when Blaney\u2019s car hit the wall on Lap 458. Though NASCAR tracks no longer publish attendance figures, the crowd was massive and the atmosphere electric.<\/p>\n

When fans in the stands waved yellow towels on Lap 18 to honor the memory of Bristol maven Kyle Busch\u2014as Ty Gibbs drove a Toyota sporting Busch\u2019s familiar M&M\u2019s paint scheme\u2014the feeling was reminiscent of Dale Jarrett\u2019s farewell tour in 2008, when a card section of 35,000 spectators expressed appreciation for DJ\u2019s accomplishments in the NASCAR Cup Series.<\/p>\n

More than anything, \u201cold-school Bristol\u201d is an abstract idea that blossoms under the lights on a summer night in rural Tennessee. On Saturday, that\u2019s what happened at Thunder Valley. The action on and off the track revived visceral feelings and created indelible memories.<\/p>\n

The objective reality was somewhat different. \u201cOld Bristol,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

With \u201cold Bristol,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else would you want in a race?\u201d Logano asked rhetorically. \u201cThat was exciting from every different angle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fans, you can hear them. I think that was about as awesome as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing could have made it better\u2014greater 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\u2019s race, clean air and track position trumped fresh rubber.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What fans will remember about this Bristol race, however, is a more impressionistic landscape\u2014Logano\u2019s dramatic charge to the win, Blaney\u2019s breathtaking wreck, the fight that followed, the moving tribute to Kyle Busch.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. \u2014 Soon after trading punches with an uncharacteristically irate Ryan Blaney, Carson Hocevar declared to TV cameras that, in Saturday\u2019s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, fans \u201cgot an old-school Bristol show here.\u201d Yes\u2014and no. The post-race brawl at Bristol Motor Speedway certainly was old-school, at least in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[177,16],"class_list":["post-61000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-bristol-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-fRS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2296159079-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61002,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61000\/revisions\/61002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}