April 21, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Bristol Dirt entertained but will get better with age

The third time will be the charm for the Bristol Dirt Race.

Despite complaints from detractors who felt racing on Easter was taboo, Last Sunday night’s show was unquestionably better than last year’s. And it was clearly entertaining, based on the four million viewers who tuned into the broadcast—the most TV fans to watch a race at Bristol Motor Speedway since 2016.

With a year to get the dirt package on the new car dialed in and additional time to work on the track, the 2023 NASCAR events are sure to deliver.

“I had a blast,” Chase Briscoe said. “The track was way, way better. I don’t know how much the rain helped that, but the banking—everything—was awesome. I thought there at the end you couldn’t put on a better race from a dirt track standpoint in these cars, so hopefully, that sold more tickets for next year and gives it an opportunity to come back, because if we keep doing this at night, I think the opportunity to put on a good race is there.”

No doubt Briscoe is biased. He had the best car by far on Sunday night. Had it not been for a slide job gone bad in the final corner of the final lap, Briscoe might have scored his second win of the season or at least scored another top-five result.

But Briscoe is absolutely right. Running a dirt race at night is a must. Given the dust factor, a day race makes no sense. Currently, Bristol Motor Speedway is advertising next year’s dirt weekend for April 16, tentatively, which doesn’t make the race a candidate for Easter weekend. That should silence some of this year’s critics.

Prior to this year’s event, Kevin Harvick said, “The only way the race is successful (on Easter) is if the TV ratings are through the roof.” They were. The ratings were up 20-percent over last year’s date (Richmond Raceway) and 28-percent over last year’s inaugural dirt race at Bristol.

Let’s be honest, Harvick wasn’t a fan of racing on dirt prior to the weekend. He expressed his displeasure the previous weekend at Martinsville, knowing his family’s annual Easter vacation would be cut short by the Bristol race. After getting collected in a wreck before Lap 100, his disgust rose.

“The first thing I can tell you is we did a terrible job prepping the track and full of mud and there was nobody here to pack the track,” Harvick said. “So we all look like a bunch of bozos coming in to pit because we don’t know how to prep the track.”

Harvick wasn’t alone in his skepticism. Ryan Blaney remained optimistic, given wider tires and a racier surface, but the third-generation racer wasn’t sold on the idea. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. felt the caliber of the equipment was more important than a driver’s experience on dirt. Until the last lap, when two dirt drivers—Briscoe and Reddick—wrecked, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

Ty Dillon hadn’t competed on dirt for five years before returning to Bristol last weekend. He led the field with 58 quality passes throughout the course of the 250-lap race before finishing 10th. The driver of the No. 42 Petty/GMS Chevrolet ranked fifth in the driver rating category after finishing second in the first stage and running in the top 10 for most of the day.

Dillon believes the pundits should stop bitching and appreciate the novelty of the event.

“A lot of our drivers just like to complain because they’re bored and sometimes just want something to talk about; just try to show emotion in that way,” Dillon said. “You just have to look at it a lot less selfishly. So what if you get a little dirty...We’re all on the same track and we’re all doing it together.

“The only thing that’s going to make this sport continue to grow and be good for everyone is to have a positive outlook; see what worked and how we can make the things that didn’t work as good better and move forward positively. I’m never bashing anything unless it’s dangerous and there’s nothing about that race that’s dangerous. I thought it was fun.

“If you look at the first year to the second year, it massively improved. Sometimes people aren’t patient enough to let something kind of mature and grow into what it really can be. Sometimes we’re quick to snap judgment and say, ‘This isn’t going to work.’ That’s just not a healthy way to look at things in our sport. I enjoy the fact that NASCAR is choosing a different way to go about racing at different tracks and trying to do things for fans.”

Over the last couple of years, NASCAR’s out-of-the box thinking has provided fans with an opportunity to see stock cars’ top stars on dirt, at the L.A. Coliseum, Nashville and on a variety of road courses from Austin, Texas to upstate Wisconsin. This summer, spectators in St. Louis will witness Cup’s debut at World Wide Technology Racetrack, while the Triple A tour—Xfinity Series—rolls out in Portland. Next year’s schedule could feature an international event or a street course race.

Wherever the sport goes next, Dillon believes that drivers who embrace the experiment are likely to reap better results.

“If you take your driver selfishness hat off and look at it globally, that was an awesome event,” Dillon said of Bristol. “You think of all the things that we fixed from the previous event, that was great. And there’s another list of things that we can continue to do to grow.

“To say this race isn’t worth it and hope we don’t go back—I think that’s kind of ridiculous. I was surprised by some of the comments from some of the drivers. I think if you look at the attitude of the drivers—the guys that liked the race ran well and the guys who didn’t like the race ran bad. The mindset of your approach or what you want to be a part of definitely helps in having a better weekend.

“You just have to be into it and embrace the fact that it’s good for our sport, and what’s good for our sport is good for us.”