Bristol on dirt provided some messy, unusual entertainment

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Credit must be given to NASCAR for at long last shaking up the status quo and trying new things, no matter how outlandish the idea.

Progressive thinking is how the Cup Series wound up back at dirt-covered Bristol Motor Speedway for a second consecutive year, this time racing late into the night on Easter Sunday — a previously taboo date for a sport deeply entrenched in the Bible Belt.

The first edition of Bristol dirt last year had its challenges. The 2,300 truckloads of red Tennessee clay at first turned to mud and blacked out the driver windshields. When the dirt dried out, it turned the bullring into a blinding dust bowl. Heavy rains also pushed the race to the next day.

Drivers did their best with the weird and unfamiliar conditions, and even before the inaugural Bristol dirt race was over, Speedway Motorsports announced it would do it all over again in 2022.

It was the same vibe over the weekend, only this time the drivers weren’t pleased to have lost their annual holiday weekend and that contributed to their disdain over reconfiguring a perfectly racy concrete short track into a dirt track.

After watching attendance for its spring race plummet over the last 15 years, Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith was willing to spend the money on the experiment, which became a made-forTV event when Fox Sports successfully pushed for the race to fill a holiday primetime slot. A full day before the green flag even fell, Smith was confident dirt would be back at Bristol in 2023.

“Dirt has been voted on by the fans, and they told us by their ticket purchasing that they want dirt back at Bristol,” Smith said Saturday of the projected attendance Sunday.

Except that the crowd wasn’t all that spectacular — maybe better that what

Bristol had been getting for its spring race in the years leading into the pandemic.

It didn’t help that the race was delayed twice by rain, and Harvick was mortified when NASCAR had to call a caution so drivers could have the mud cleaned off their windshields.

Even the winner had mixed feelings.

Kyle Busch backed into his first victory of the season when he skirted past the spinning lead cars of Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe headed into the final turn. Reddick was going to win before Briscoe made him spin. Busch wound up with tying Hall of Famer Richard Petty in winning a race for the 18th consecutive year.

“You saw what it’s like on the last corner, the last lap, to drive around here every single lap,” Busch said of winning on dirt. “You’re just not breathing because you’re so tensed up of not crashing. If it’s a good show, it’s a good show. I think Bristol is fine with or without (dirt).”