April 10, 2023 | By Lee Spencer

Dirt-trackers finally dominate Bristol’s highbanks

BRISTOL, Tenn.—It took three years for the Food City Dirt Race to follow the expected form.

When Marcus Smith’s Speedway Motorsports announced the Last Great Coliseum would be transformed into a dirt track for the 2021 spring date, common sense said a driver with a dirt background would be likely to find Victory Lane.

But that didn’t happen. Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell took each other out and collected four of their peers 53 laps into the inaugural Food City Dirt Race. Joey Logano, with virtually no dirt experience, claimed the celebratory sword.

Not a single driver from a dirt discipline led a lap in the 2021 event. Second-place Ricky Stenhouse Jr., fifth-place Ryan Newman and seventh-place Tyler Reddick were the only drivers with dirt backgrounds to finish in the top 10.

Last year, Bristol came close to delivering a dirt driver showdown between Tyler Reddick and Chase Briscoe—until Briscoe’s slide job-gone-wrong out in the last corner sent the racers spinning. Kyle Busch emerged from a cloud of dust to claim the win. Reddick, who had led a race-high 99 laps, held second place. In 2022, four of the top 10 finishers raced on dirt before advancing to Cup.

The complexion of the event changed dramatically on Sunday with Bell, a three-time Chili Bowl Nationals champion, holding off Reddick to become the first dirt specialist to win on the clay-covered track.

“Finally,” I said to Bell as entered Bristol’s media center. “Yeah, finally,” he replied.

“The track was most definitely a very tough surface to get ahold of,” Bell said. “It should have rewarded guys that kind of knew what to expect and how to get the car around the race track, which I think it did.

“It was a tricky surface. It was very tough to produce lap time. I think that's what made it fun, too.”

Fans were treated to a glimpse of a Bell-Larson battle early on, but the No. 20 Toyota wasn’t nearly as stout as the No. 5 Chevrolet in the first stage. Bell remained in the top 10, but Larson led all 75 laps of the segment.

Bell’s crew chief Adam Stevens made significant adjustments to the car and the driver remained in the hunt during the Reddick-dominated second stage.

For Bell, the game changer was Stevens’ decision to leave the No. 20 car on the track at the conclusion of Stage 2, giving Bell the lead on Lap 151. Briscoe lined up second. Bell’s dirt experience—along with a competitively groomed track that rubbered up from the apron to the cushion—enabled him to complete 175 laps on the same set of tires and hold off Reddick for the win.

“The biggest thing is the way the track changes,” Stevens said. “When this cushion got built up late in the third stage or pretty much the whole third stage, that groove started to come in, you had to be able to adapt to that line quickly. Every restart, the preferred line was slightly different for a few laps. You had to be able to run that groove.

“It takes a special skill to match that entry speed with the amount of grip that you know you're going to have in the center. If you overdo it, it can get away from you. If you underdo it, you're going to get passed.

“The dirt drivers can do that while dodging the little spots where the track is coming apart, make those microscopic changes to the line, driving style, to keep the car under them and to keep them going forward.”

The top six finishers—Bell, Reddick, Austin Dillon, Stenhouse, Briscoe and Justin Haley—all raced dirt growing up, and many continue to compete in grassroots racing. And they all remained long after the race ended to express their delight from racing on dirt.

“It was a lot of fun honestly and really intense,” Reddick said. “Towards the end there, definitely felt like I had a little bit more of an edge, and there in the closing laps I thought I found it…Just wish I would have had that last 20 laps back, but this is the second year in a row I’ve said that.”

He expressed that sentiment to Bell when Reddick ran over to the car to congratulate him. Dillon, who completed the podium, described the event as “one of the best races of the year.”

“You saw guys slide-jobbing, running against the fence, running into each other,” Dillon said. “It was pretty clean for what it was. A little rough out there at this end (Turns 3 and 4) which made for some cool opportunities cause there is grip in that orange stuff that you see in those holes. I’ve been to a lot of asphalt races this year that wasn’t as good as that.

“Just had to adapt. It’s been a minute since I’ve been on any kind of a dirt track. Late models is what I grew up racing. It came back to me as I ran. When (the groove) got up all the way up against the fence, I was just a little slow getting there and needed a little bit more to use that.

“I just have to thank SMI (Speedway Motorsports Inc.) for all of the hard work they’ve done with this dirt racing. I don’t care what anybody says, that was an amazing show throughout the field. I felt like it was some great racing.”

From the FOX Sports booth, three-time Cup champ and USAC Triple Crown winner-turned-commentator Tony Stewart said in the six years since he left the seat, it was the first time he wished he was still racing in NASCAR.

Late model champion Jonathan Davenport didn’t accomplish his personal goal of completing every lap in his NASCAR debut. A mechanical failure following contact in a crash involving  Larson and Ryan Preece ended his night after 176 laps. Still, “Superman” was thankful there was dirt at Bristol and that he was offered the opportunity from Kaulig Racing.

“Track conditions were awesome,” said Davenport. “It had a lot of character in 3 and 4. You had to move around. That’s what a dirt track needs—people to move around. It was getting really slick and that’s when the cream rises to the top. They put on a good show here.”

While there was plenty of debate in the weeks leading up to the Bristol Dirt Race as to whether one of the iconic short tracks needs to be covered in clay, the entertainment factor on Sunday was unmistakable.

“I guess that's more for the general public to decide,” Bell said. “From my seat, it seemed like it was a pretty good race.

“This is also one of the best short tracks we have on the schedule. I don't know, maybe we have three Bristol races, and that's probably not likely. Yeah, I'm good either way on it.”