Rain cancels Bristol dirt heats, Trucks postponed to Sunday

If you have ever wondered what NASCAR would look like if it was a mud bogging discipline, the Camping World Truck Series provided a lap of that on Saturday. Rain plagued Saturday’s track activities at Bristol Motor Speedway, forcing the cancellation of the Truck and Cup Series‘ heat races to set the grids for their respective points races. The former’s Pinty’s Dirt Truck Race, which was scheduled for the evening, was also postponed to Sunday night, while Cup’s Food City Dirt Race will still take place on Sunday afternoon as planned. Both races’ starting lineups are instead determined by formula as with races without qualifying, which place Kyle Larson (Cup) and John Hunter Nemechek (Truck) on the poles.

Rain and oval racing rarely, if evergo well together, but the situation is exacerbated for dirt track racing as planned for Bristol. When the weather briefly complied, NASCAR began the first of four planned Truck heat races, but it proved to be a case study in the aforementioned statement as it lasted just one lap before being halted due to mud quickly covering the grilles and windshields. Driver visibility had been raised as a concern during Friday’s practice sessions in regards to dust, but the mud was an even more dangerous coating as vision was blocked completely.

Heat #1 pole winner Mike Marlar led the lone green-flag lap, but the qualifying formula placed his starting spot for the feature in thirty-eighth. It will be Marlar’s first Truck race since his début in 2019, while his Hill Motorsports team is a small operation that sits thirty-sixth in owner points. Raphaël Lessard and Ben Rhodes, who led the two Friday practices, will respectively start twenty-ninth and ninth.

Hill Motorsports owner Timmy Hill quipped, “Welp, it was short but we led all the laps today!”

Among the dirt ringers, Cody Erickson starts thirty-fourth in his fourth Truck race (last on Bristol’s concrete layout in 2020; he also raced at Eldora in 2014 and 2015), while Jake Griffin is thirty-sixth as he makes his first start since Eldora in 2019. Starting last will be Andrew Gordon in his first NASCAR start.

Trevor Collins and Jessica Friesen, both of whom were hoping to qualify for their maiden NASCAR races, and Cup driver Ryan Newman officially failed to qualify. J.R. Heffner withdrew from the weekend after wrecking his truck in Friday’s final practice.

Of the eight remaining Cup drivers dabbling in the Trucks for more seat time (which is ironically invalidated by the postponement as the Truck race is now after the parent series’), Martin Truex Jr. is the highest starter in fifteenth in his first Truck event since 2006. Daniel Suárez is twenty-sixth in his first Truck race in five years, while Kevin Harvick is thirtieth in his return after a six-year absence. A trio of drivers who won the Truck Series’ previous dirt race at Eldora Speedway also start in the bottom half with Larson (twenty-eighth), Bubba Wallace (thirty-second), and Chase Briscoe (thirty-third). Xfinity Series driver Myatt Snider will begin his night in thirty-seventh.

For the Cup race, Larson is officially the pole sitter but will be sent to the rear for the green flag after changing his engine during his series’ final practice. As a result, third-placed Ryan Blaney—who led said practice—will take his spot. Larson’s team-mate Alex Bowman, the fastest in the first practice, rolls off seventh.

Among drivers making their Cup débuts, Truck regular and Friesen’s husband Stewart starts thirty-second ahead of Shane Golobic (thirty-fifth), Chris Windom (thirty-sixth), and Marlar (thirty-eighth again). J.J. Yeley is thirty-fourth in his first Cup race of 2021 while Ty Dillon starts last for his and Gaunt Brothers Racing‘s return to the series after taking the last four weeks off.

The postponement sparked much conversation on social media, including whether NASCAR should have implemented more changes to the vehicles to adapt to the circumstances such as removing windshields to emulate dirt cars, moving the Bristol spring race to another date with a lower threat of rain, or criticising the dirt experiment altogether. On the other side of the debate, one can argue removing windshields for a one-off, especially with the electronics in the cockpit, would be impractical. Others have also pointed out such a situation would have occurred anyway even for races on Bristol’s concrete surface or any other dirt event. The Truck Series will run another dirt race in July at Knoxville Raceway, while Eldora was the lone national series dirt event from 2013 to 2019.

“Maybe Richard Petty was right after all,” tweeted Cup driver Denny Hamlin. The remark was alluding to Petty’s comments to Autoweek in October 2020, shortly after the Bristol dirt race was announced, about dirt racing being similar to “taking a professional football team and going back to play at a high school field.” Petty had won the Cup Series’ last dirt event in 1970, but felt returning to such tracks would be a step backwards towards their smaller roots. Nevertheless, he added that although Bristol could “be another gimmick,” there was also the possibility that it is “what NASCAR needs to keep our base growing.”

“Just an FYI, when this race happens. We aren’t going to be able to see either way,” Griffin tweeted on Saturday evening. “The track has to be dry enough to not throw up mud so the engines can stay cool. But when it gets dry the dust is so thick that if you aren’t leading you can’t see the car in front of you.”

The Food City Dirt Race will begin at 3:30 PM Eastern, followed by the Pinty’s Dirt Truck Race at 9 PM. On Saturday morning, NASCAR announced that after analysing the results of Friday’s practices, the Cup race’s first two stages would end on laps 100 and 200 instead of 75 and 150 as previously planned, while competition cautions were added on laps 50 and 150. Teams will also receive an extra set of tyres.

Cup starting lineup

Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer
1	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
2	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
3	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford
4	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
5	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
6	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford
7	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
8	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
9	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
10	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford
11	17	Chris Buescher	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford
12	21	Matt DiBenedetto	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford
13	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet
14	6	Ryan Newman	Roush Fenway Racing	Ford
15	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota
16	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
17	42	Ross Chastain	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet
18	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet
19	23	Bubba Wallace	23XI Racing	Toyota
20	2	Brad Keselowski	Team Penske	Ford
21	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford
22	37	Ryan Preece	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet
23	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford
24	43	Erik Jones	Richard Petty Motorsports	Chevrolet
25	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford
26	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
27	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet
28	1	Kurt Busch	Chip Ganassi Racing	Chevrolet
29	38	Anthony Alfredo	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
30	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
31	51	Cody Ware*	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet
32	77	Stewart Friesen*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet
33	00	Quin Houff	StarCom Racing	Chevrolet
34	53	J.J. Yeley*	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet
35	78	Shane Golobic	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford
36	15	Chris Windom	Rick Ware Racing	Chevrolet
37	52	Josh Bilicki	Rick Ware Racing	Ford
38	66	Mike Marlar	MBM Motorsports	Toyota
39	96	Ty Dillon*	Gaunt Brothers Racing	Toyota

Truck starting lineup

Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer
1	4	John Hunter Nemechek	Kyle Busch Motorsports	Toyota
2	16	Austin Hill	Hattori Racing Enterprises	Toyota
3	2	Sheldon Creed	GMS Racing	Chevrolet
4	88	Matt Crafton	ThorSport Racing	Toyota
5	13	Johnny Sauter	ThorSport Racing	Toyota
6	21	Zane Smith	GMS Racing	Chevrolet
7	52	Stewart Friesen	Halmar Friesen Racing	Toyota
8	98	Grant Enfinger	ThorSport Racing	Toyota
9	99	Ben Rhodes	ThorSport Racing	Toyota
10	45	Brett Moffitt	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet
11	42	Carson Hocevar	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet
12	19	Derek Kraus	McAnally-Hilgemann Racing	Toyota
13	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford
14	40	Ryan Truex	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet
15	51	Martin Truex Jr.*	Kyle Busch Motorsports	Toyota
16	75	Parker Kligerman	Henderson Motorsports	Chevrolet
17	22	Austin Wayne Self	AM Racing	Chevrolet
18	15	Tanner Gray	David Gilliland Racing	Ford
19	26	Tyler Ankrum	GMS Racing	Chevrolet
20	9	Codie Rohrbaugh	CR7 Motorsports	Chevrolet
21	18	Chandler Smith	Kyle Busch Motorsports	Toyota
22	1	Hailie Deegan	David Gilliland Racing	Ford
23	23	Chase Purdy	GMS Racing	Chevrolet
24	12	Tate Fogleman	Young’s Motorsports	Chevrolet
25	30	Danny Bohn	On Point Motorsports	Toyota
26	02	Daniel Suárez*	Young’s Motorsports	Chevrolet
27	25	Timothy Peters	Rackley WAR	Chevrolet
28	44	Kyle Larson*	Niece Motorsports	Chevrolet
29	24	Raphaël Lessard	GMS Racing	Chevrolet
30	17	Kevin Harvick*	David Gilliland Racing	Ford
31	20	Spencer Boyd	Young’s Motorsports	Chevrolet
32	11	Bubba Wallace*	Spencer Davis Motorsports	Toyota
33	04	Chase Briscoe*	Roper Racing	Ford
34	41	Cody Erickson	Cram Racing Enterprises	Chevrolet
35	10	Jennifer Jo Cobb	Jennifer Jo Cobb Racing	Chevrolet
36	34	Jake Griffin	Reaume Brothers Racing	Toyota
37	33	Myatt Snider*	Reaume Brothers Racing	Chevrolet
38	56	Mike Marlar*	Hill Motorsports	Chevrolet
39	6	Norm Benning	Norm Benning Racing	Chevrolet
40	49	Andrew Gordon	CMI Motorsports	Chevrolet