It's time for a little short-track racing in NASCAR on Sunday when the Sprint Cup Series heads to Bristol, Tenn., for the Food City 500.
Measuring in at .533 miles and featuring 36 degrees of banking in the corners. Bristol Motor Speedway is very tight and very fast.
Kyle Busch is the betting favorite at WagerWeb.com this week, as he is the defending race champion, the series points leader and coming off a win in last week's Kobalt Tools 500 in Atlanta. Since the spring of 2006, Busch has four consecutive top-10 finishes at Bristol. Still, his preparation is no different here than at any other race track.
"We're just going to go out there and do the best we can. We'll see what kind of car we have here at the beginning of practice with the new surface and everything - being with Joe Gibbs Racing this year versus the Hendrick Motorsports stuff last year," said Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M's Toyota. "Although we won this race last year, it was on the old concrete and we didn't run as well as we wanted to on the new concrete last fall."
If not for a blown right tire that caused him to finish 24th after leading 153 laps in last Saturday's Nationwide Series race, Busch, the points leader in the Sprint Cup and Craftsman Truck standings, would lead all three series.
No one has ever done that. Now, all of sudden, people are looking differently at Busch. He is being viewed as a serious threat for the Sprint Cup championship.
"I've earned a lot of respect from the people in the garage area and different owners," Busch said. "Being able to go [through] the transition phase last year, talking to Richard Childress and talking to Ray Evernham and Chip Ganassi and all of the other team owners out there [who] gave me their time; it was pretty special. Everybody got a taste of exactly who I am."Because qualifying was rained out, based on NASCAR's rainout rules, which order the field for the first five races based on the previous year's owner points, reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson will start on the pole for the fifth points race of 2008, with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon beside him on the front row.
Johnson was happy to claim the top starting position, even if he didn't win it on the track.
"This is one of the most important tracks for qualifying position and pit road pick," he said. "We worked awfully hard last year to be where we are, and we'll take it."
Johnson won four of NASCAR's six short-track races last year, but he finished only 16th and 21st in the two Bristol races and he's never won there.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. would seem to have a chance to return to Victory Lane this week, as he is coming off consecutive top-five finishes at Las Vegas and Atlanta, and no driver has scored more points at Bristol in the past six races than Junior, and his average finish in that span is 6.5.
This weekend, NASCAR will say farewell to one of its legends as 1999 points champion Dale Jarrett will drive in his final NASCAR point’s race.
The 24-year veteran will race in his 668th event in NASCAR's top series this weekend before heading to the broadcast booth later this year. Jarrett will replace Rusty Wallace as expert color commentator for ABC/ESPN broadcasts later this year.
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