{"id":42441,"date":"2023-04-08T18:20:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T23:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=42441"},"modified":"2023-04-26T16:53:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T21:53:03","slug":"nascar-saturday-bristol-notebook-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/08\/nascar-saturday-bristol-notebook-4\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Bristol Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Reid Spencer <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Ross Chastain was shocked at criticism from Christopher Bell<\/b><\/p>\n

BRISTOL, Tenn.\u2014Ross Chastain is so accustomed to receiving blame for on-track incidents that he and his team joked about potential comments from Christopher Bell last Sunday at Richmond.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A general view of the “BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY” signage during the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Weather Guard Truck Race on Dirt at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 08, 2023 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by James Gilbert\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

With Chastain on the bottom of a three-wide scenario and Bell in the middle after a restart on Lap 380, Bell moved up the track, tapped Byron\u2019s left-rear quarter and spun the No. 24 Chevrolet. <\/p>\n

Bell\u2019s characterization of Chastain\u2019s move to fill the bottom lane was anything but charitable. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe wrecking ball came in and made us three-wide at the last second, and there wasn\u2019t enough room to be three-wide,\u201d Bell said. <\/p>\n

To say that Chastain was shocked to be called a wrecking ball in that instance is the height of understatement, even though Chastain has been a convenient whipping boy whenever he\u2019s near an accident on track. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo what\u2019s so crazy,\u201d Chastain said, \u201cwe got out (of the car at Richmond), and one of my guys jokingly said, \u2018What are they going to say about you? What\u2019s the 20 (Bell) going to say about you?\u2019 And we laughed, because we didn\u2019t think anything. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then we hear about it a couple of minutes later, and we were like jaws on the ground. It caught us completely by surprise to get blamed for that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bell initially also blamed Byron for crowding him, but after seeing video of the incident, he apologized\u2014to Byron, not to Chastain. <\/p>\n

Kyle Larson thinks Cup cars on dirt may be tough for Jonathan Davenport <\/b><\/p>\n

For the second time in four days, Kyle Larson will face off against dirt late model superstar Jonathan Davenport when the NASCAR Cup Series cars take to the track for Sunday\u2019s Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway (7 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). <\/p>\n

Larson took the measure of the driver nicknamed \u201cSuperman\u201d in Thursday night\u2019s FloRacing Late Model Challenge, an event the 2021 Cup champion promoted at Volunteer Speedway in Bull\u2019s Gap, Tenn. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was having fun the whole time,\u201d Larson said. \u201cI would imagine he was having fun, too. I was throwing haymakers at him though, so it probably did get stressful at times for him. I feel like I had a little bit better car than him and was doing a better job of running the top, so he probably felt a little pressure the whole time.\u201d <\/p>\n

Given the radical differences between the Cup cars and a dirt late model, Larson will be surprised if Davenport mounts a challenge in Sunday\u2019s event at Bristol. \u201cSuperman,\u201d who also will start 25th in Saturday\u2019s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race, will be driving the No. 13 Chevrolet fielded by Kaulig Racing in the Food City Dirt Race. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t remember the Kaulig cars being very good in the Cup race last year, and they haven\u2019t been that strong yet anywhere this year,\u201d Larson said. \u201cAnd the Cup Series is just a lot tougher. <\/p>\n

Larson also stressed the differences between the cars that raced Thursday and NASCAR\u2019s Next Gen Cup car. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey couldn\u2019t be further apart from each other,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody just assumes, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s a dirt track\u2014dirt cars drive the same; you put a Cup car on dirt, and a dirt guy\u2019s going to be good.\u2019 But these cars are not dirt cars. They\u2019re not built for it. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnless he\u2019s driven a street stock, which I don\u2019t know if he has, it\u2019s probably not going to drive anything like what he\u2019s used to.\u201d <\/p>\n

Davenport nevertheless performed capably in the fourth qualifying head race on Saturday, starting second and finishing fourth.  <\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s victory on Bristol Dirt kept Kyle Busch\u2019s now-record streak alive <\/b><\/p>\n

Kyle Busch\u2019s last season with Joe Gibbs Racing didn\u2019t live up to the driver\u2019s expectations. <\/p>\n

Busch won only one race, the Food City Dirt Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, and that victory was a gift. The first- and second-place cars of Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe spun in front of him in the final corner, and Busch was able to beat Reddick to the finish line.  <\/p>\n

As it turned out, that lone triumph extended Busch\u2019s streak of winning at least one race per season to 18 straight years, tying him at the time with Richard Petty for the NASCAR Cup Series record. <\/p>\n

Thanks to his victory at Auto Club Speedway in late February, Busch now has sole possession of the record. <\/p>\n

Busch never thought a Cup win on dirt would be so integral to preserving his streak. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, definitely not,\u201d he said. \u201cIt certainly shines a light of just how important every single race, every single week is. And for the nature of us going to all these different venues and having the diversity that we do in the race tracks that we go to is fun to a point.\u201d <\/p>\n

Busch also pointed out how perilous it is to drive a Cup car on dirt. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese things here, you\u2019re literally trying to not spin out when you\u2019re going around there on the race track,\u201d Busch said. \u201cSo how do you make a pass when you\u2019re already past the limit of spinning out? It\u2019s tough. It just makes for a tough race.  <\/p>\n

\u201cMakes it for a little better track position race. No different than anything else that we really do. But that dirt race last year was certainly significant to my years of winning races and capitalizing on that when we did. Lucky for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer  NASCAR Wire Service Ross Chastain was shocked at criticism from Christopher Bell BRISTOL, Tenn.\u2014Ross Chastain is so accustomed to receiving blame for on-track incidents that he and his team joked about potential comments from Christopher Bell last Sunday at Richmond. With Chastain on the bottom of a three-wide scenario and Bell in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":42610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[11],"tags":[177,16],"class_list":["post-42441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-bristol-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/GettyImages-1480895385-1-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-b2x","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42441"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42611,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42441\/revisions\/42611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}