Darrell Waltrip explains why the Bristol race had it all
I've been going to Bristol Motor Speedway for decades. I've been blessed to have had a lot of success there. In addition to that, since I retired and went to FOX, I've broadcast a lot of races from there. So I think it's safe to say I know a little bit about the joint. With all that said, I felt Sunday's race was one of the most entertaining races -- fun, intriguing, filled with twists, turns and emotions. If you can name it, we saw it Sunday at Bristol.
As we always tell you, the fastest car doesn't always win the race, but that can't be said about Carl Edwards and his No. 19 team. Carl won the pole, dominated the race, leading 276 of 500 laps, and got his first win of the year. He became our sixth winner in eight races so far this year. Sunday's win also moved him to second in the points and even more importantly, put him into the 2016 Chase.
To give you an idea of how perfect his day was Sunday, at Lap 100 he was in sixth place. From that point until he pulled into Victory Circle, that was the lowest Carl was the rest of the race. So he had a flawless day, but the irony is his other three teammates had the farthest thing from a good day.
Believe it or not, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin had seven tire issues among them. You just know Carl had to be holding his breath wondering when or if that same tire issue was going to bite him, but thankfully for him it didn't.
We saw some very wild things happen beginning with Dale Earnhardt Jr. coming to take the green flag. These cars are equipped with a cut-off switch that can activate if you apply to much brake pressure. It normally would take a lot of pressure for it to happen, but if it does it will kill the engine. Well apparently during the parade laps leading up to the green flag, Dale Jr. was stabbing his brakes to get some heat into them. Evidently he hit the brakes too hard his last time of doing it and it killed the engine right when the green flag waved.
As you can imagine it caused a melee with everyone behind him scrambling to get out of the way and get around him since his engine had cut off. He got to the pits, the crew had to reset his ECU unit and got him back out only two laps down.
It took him roughly two-thirds of the race to finally recover and get on the lead lap. Believe it or not, when the checkered flag waved, there Dale Jr. was with an amazing second-place finish. So needless to say, that whole storyline Sunday was weird.
The other storyline from Sunday had to the abundance of penalties. The No. 2, the No. 48, the No. 18, the No. 22, the No. 6, the No. 3, the No. 42 and the No. 11 all were penalized. Now the crazy part is that is just to name a few that we saw that had issues in the pits. There were pit road violations of every shape and form.
I also don't know how many cars I saw have to come back in for loose wheels on Sunday. Now I know NASCAR has said they aren't going to police this issue. It's up to the teams, but certainly a driver can't be expected to drive a car with a loose wheel. Sometimes I think though that NASCAR has to protect the driver and teams from themselves. I think sometimes when issues like this continue to occur, NASCAR needs to take a look at it and decide if the teams are going too far to the extreme.
We may very well be at that point. If you remember, it was regulated for years of whether a car had all five lug nuts on each tire or not. That was then, but it certainly isn't now. I mean I understand the reasoning and the situation, but I just think when you blatantly leave them off, where you might only glue up only four on the right side and only three on the left side, that maybe the teams have gone too far over the line.
That's just a little bit over the top for me. Now I realize the teams will probably disagree with me. They will probably say "leave us alone, we know what we are doing."
All I know is that the number of loose wheels we are seeing and the number of cars having to come back to pit road tells me one thing. It tells me that some of them know what they are doing but definitely not all of them know what they are doing. So that's a situation I believe NASCAR's probably going to have to take a look at.
So that was another storyline we all were watching play out Sunday. We watched Kurt Busch have a strong car most of the day. He led 41 laps and finished third. One of our rookie of the year contenders, Chase Elliott ran hard all day and came home fourth, so that was a great finish for that young man.
To me, the best storyline of Sunday was the No. 83 car. Matt DiBenedetto came home sixth Sunday and his post-race interview was what racing is all about. For that kid to get that kind of finish at a tough track like Bristol was spectacular.
It wasn't a fluke and he didn't luck into it, Matt earned that sixth-place finish so I tip my hat to that young man. Everyone in the garage will tell you that Matt is one of the nicest young men in there. To see his emotion after the racing was especially touching.
I don't know any other way to put it, but that's the way racing used to be. A great finish meant something and you had emotion to go with it. If you didn't get a chance to hear his post-race interview, Matt summed it up the best when he said, "Finishing sixth is like a win for us," and he said it fighting back the tears. So that was special and I am so happy for that whole crowd.
Kevin Harvick had a strong car all day long. He led 13 laps and came home seventh on Sunday. Now you think Kevin who is used to winning or finishing second would be disappointed, but his seventh-place finish moved him into the points lead.
Clint Bowyer is another great storyline that came out of Sunday's race. Clint's a buddy of mine and I've been encouraging him because as you know, their season has been pretty much off the rails so far. Remember he is driving 2016 only for Harry Scott and then in 2017 he will take over the No. 14 car from retiring Tony Stewart.
We've all been waiting for them to finally put a good race together and Sunday it happened. Clint started the day in 36th spot but by the end of the day he got his first top 10 of the year with a great eighth-place finish. They needed a run like that and it was great to see them finally get it.
I also want to tip my hat to our FOX NASCAR team both those on-camera and behind the scenes. That is a very hard race to cover because things happen so fast and there's always something going on. Our team was able to bring you action from every angle. They were able to get the shot of Kyle Busch running over a woman's foot in the garage. They gave us shots of teams gluing up four lug nuts on the right-side tires while only gluing up three on the left.
My hat's off to Richie Zyontz, Barry Landis, Artie Kempner, Pam Miller and all the gang in the truck and behind the scenes. They do an amazing job and have a passion for what they do. Trust me, it makes the job of us folks on-camera a whole lot easier. For the most part we've all been together for our 16th season now and the coverage just keeps getting better.
I was also excited Sunday to see the continued improvement of the Roush-Fenway cars. Not only is it good for their organization and sponsors, but it's good for the sport. I know they all didn't get the finish they were hoping for, but at one point they had all three cars running in the Top 10 Sunday.
They've come a long way and I expect them to keep improving. One of their drivers, Trevor Bayne did get a great finish. Believe it or not, but when he finished fifth on Sunday, that was Trevor's first top-five finish since February of 2011. You might remember February 2011. Trust me, Trevor sure does because that's when he won the Daytona 500 as a rookie.
I know that a lot of the naysayers of our sport wanted to quickly point out how many empty seats there were Sunday at Bristol. Let me explain something to them. It's all perception. The joint holds 165,000 people and Sunday there were 90,000 people there spread out all around the track. I challenge anyone to show me an NFL, MLB or NBA team that wouldn't kill to have 90,000 fans at their sporting event?
Yes, I get it, Sunday it looked sparse but I don't care who you are, 90,000 folks are a lot of fans for any sporting event.
Thankfully the race has been moved from March to April. Mother Nature hasn't been too kind to Bristol in March the last few years. I can understand fans feeling frustrated by spending their hard-earned money to bring the family to Bristol only to sit in the March rains. It's human nature that those kind of experiences effect you when you go to make your plans for next year.
Moving the race to April is a huge step in the right direction in my book. The race experience both outside as well as on-track has never been better. Now, like we saw Sunday we have the weather to go with it. It's going to take some time to get some fans to come back. I get it. You go to a track and have a bad experience, so you say "I'm not going there next year."
I'm just saying you have to put it into perspective. There were 90,000 people there who got to watch a great race. I love what one reporter said. He talked about the irony of people who weren't there Sunday complaining about people who weren't there Sunday.
So you know what I have to say about all that? Instead of criticizing the track and the sport about the number of empty seats, why don't you buy a ticket and show up next time?
It's definitely worth your time, your effort and your money. I promise you that you'll see one of the most exciting races on the circuit. If you go to Bristol, you are going to have a great time and see a great race. So don't be complaining about the empty seats if you weren't there.
