NASCAR Xfinity Series News & Notes – Bristol Motor Speedway

NASCAR Xfinity Series
Next Race: SciAps 300
The Place: Bristol Motor Speedway
Track Length: 0.533 Mile Concrete Oval
The Date: Saturday, April 12
The Time: 5 p.m. ET
The Purse: $1,651,939
TV: CW, 4:30 p.m. ET
Radio: PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR (Channel 90)
Distance: 159.9 miles (300 Laps); Stage 1 (Ends on Lap 85),
Stage 2 (Ends on Lap 170), Final Stage (Ends on Lap 300)

Where To Watch NASCAR This Week:

Friday, April 11

NCTS Practice & Kennametal Pole Qualifying (FS2 at 3:30 p.m. ET)

NCTS Race: Weather Guard Truck Race (FS1, NRN, SiriusXM at 7:30 p.m. ET)

Saturday, April 12

NXS Practice & Kennametal Pole Qualifying (The CW App at 11:30 a.m. ET)

NCS Practice & Busch Light Pole Qualifying (Amazon Prime, PRN, SiriusXM at 2 p.m. ET)

NXS Race: SciAps 300 (The CW, PRN, SiriusXM at 5 p.m. ET)

Sunday, April 13

NCS Race: Food City 500 (FS1, PRN, SiriusXM at 3 p.m. ET)

Bristol Storylines and Insights:

This weekend will be the 82nd running of a NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway (1982-2025).
Bristol is the third of 4 Dash 4 Cash races in 2025: Miami, Martinsville, Bristol and Rockingham.
Bristol Dash 4 Cash drivers: #00 Sheldon Creed, #7 Justin Allgaier, #21 Austin Hill, #44 Brennan Poole.
Justin Allgaier (Miami) and Austin Hill (Martinsville) won first two Dash 4 Cash bonuses in 2025.
Joe Gibbs Racing is one pole win away from 200, they are the only team to reach 100 poles.
Brandon Jones snapped a 98-race winless streak with Darlington victory. All six of Brandon Jones’ wins came with Joe Gibbs Racing.
Kyle Larson is doing triple duty at Bristol, running Cup, Xfinity and Trucks.
Kyle Larson won Cup & Truck Series races at Miami and finished fourth in Xfinity Series race.
Kyle Busch is the only driver to win three national series races in a weekend, sweeping Bristol in 2010 & 2017.
Jesse Love is making his Cup debut and doing double duty at Bristol.
Brandon Jones and Corey Heim will be doing double duty in Xfinity and Trucks.
Justin Allgaier (2) and Kyle Larson (1) are only past Bristol winners in the field.
Justin Allgaier led the most laps in five of last six Bristol races.
Justin Allgaier was passed for the win in three of last seven Bristol races.
Justin Allgaier won eight of the last 16 Bristol stages.
The last 13 Bristol races were won by 12 different drivers – Noah Gragson only repeat in span.
Joe Gibbs Racing won 13 of last 25 Bristol races but is winless in the last seven races there.
Ryan Sieg finished inside the top-10 in last three Bristol races, the only driver with an active streak of 2 or more.
Bristol is one of 10 tracks where Sheldon Creed finished runner-up.
Christian Eckes (1), Sam Mayer (1) and Corey Heim (1) won in the CRAFTSMAN Trucks Series at Bristol.
Justin Allgaier finished top-five in the last five races, his longest top-five streak in NXS is six races in 2019.
Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer lead all drivers with six top-10 finishes this season.
Justin Allgaier is the only driver to finish on the lead lap in all eight races of 2025.
JR Motorsports drivers won five of eight fastest lap awards.
Four races this year ended with a last lap pass, the most ever through eight races in a season.
Four of the eight races this season went to overtime.
Hendrick Motorsports’ #17 finished second three times this season with William Byron (COTA), Alex Bowman (Phoenix) and Chase Elliott (Darlington).
JR Motorsports is nine wins away from 100, only three other teams won at least 100 NXS races (Joe Gibbs Racing-217, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing-138, Richard Childress Racing-100).
Carson Kvapil went from -11 below Playoff cut to +25 in last four races.
Daniel Dye’s 11.0 average finish over last three races leads the eight rookies.
Chevrolet led 1,026 of 1,366 laps this season.
Brennan Poole finished better than he started in each of the last seven races including Martinsville where he finished fourth after starting 29th.

Additional Dash 4 Cash Information:

Martinsville is the third of four Dash 4 Cash races: Miami, Martinsville, Bristol and Rockingham.
Justin Allgaier won the Dash 4 Cash at Miami, his record sixth win.
Austin Hill won the Dash 4 Cash at Martinsville, his first win.
Bristol Dash 4 Cash drivers: #00 Sheldon Creed, #7 Justin Allgaier, #21 Austin Hill, #44 Brennan Poole.
The best finishing of the four Dash 4 Cash drivers will win a $100,000 bonus.
2025 is the 17th season of Dash 4 Cash in NXS, with $6,125,000 awarded since the start of the program in 2009.

NASCAR & Bristol, Etc.

Historical & Significant Events at Bristol Motor Speedway:

Groundbreaking for Bristol International Speedway, as Bristol Motor Speedway was originally known, took place in 1960.
The track was built by Bowling operator Larry Carrier, Kingsport businessman Carl Moore and construction company owner R.G. Pope and the track measured an exact half-mile.
The first NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway was on July 30, 1961, and the inaugural event was won by Jack Smith with relief from Johnny Allen. Smith had a three lap lead when Allen took over and Allen built the lead to as many as six laps.
Also in 1961, the NFL’s Washington Redskins took on the Philadelphia Eagles in a pre-season game at Bristol Motor Speedway. The Eagles won, 17-10.
In 1969 the track was dug up and reshaped and the banking significantly increased. Starting in July 1969 the track was measured at .533 miles.
Financial problems led to sale of the track after the 1976 season to Nashville accountant and attorney Gary Baker and his partner Lanny Hester.
All of the NASCAR Cup Series races at Bristol have been scheduled for 500 laps, except for both races in 1976 and the second in 1977, which were 400 laps each.
The name changed to Bristol International Raceway in 1978.
The first night race was held in the fall of 1978.
In 1982 and in 1985 the track underwent ownership changes. In 1982 California businessman Warner Hodgdon began buying into teams and tracks. In 1982 he bought out Hester and in 1983 Baker’s half. In 1985 Hodgdon declared bankruptcy. Larry Carrier stepped in to run the track.
The surface was changed from asphalt to concrete in 1992, becoming the first track on the schedule to be completely surfaced in concrete.
Larry Carrier led the track for 10 years until he sold it to Speedway Motorsports for a reported $26 million in 1996. The track had a capacity of 71,000 and the Night Race was one of the Series premier events, called the ‘Toughest Ticket in Racing’.
The track name changed again, this time to Bristol Motor Speedway in May of 1996.
The track was resurfaced between races in 2007, and the turns were ground down in 2012 to eliminate part of the progressive banking.
In 2016, Bristol enjoyed its “Biggest Year Yet” hosting the Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol, where border rivals Virginia Tech and the University of Tennessee played a college football game in front of an NCAA-record crowd of 156,990.
In 2016, a special country music concert was held, featuring a trio of successful local acts. The Honda Ridgeline Bristol Tailgate featured Kenny Chesney, The Band Perry and Old Dominion in front of a crowd of more than 40,000.
The week following the Pilot Flying J Battle at Bristol, Bristol Motor Speedway held a second game in 2016, the Food City Bucs at Bristol presented by Food City. The local favorite East Tennessee State University Buccaneers upset rival Western Carolina University 34-31 in a thrilling come-from-behind victory.
In 2020, Bristol Motor Speedway hosted the NASCAR Cup Series Open and All-Star Race for the first-time.
In total, there have been 125 NASCAR Cup Series points-paying races at Bristol Motor Speedway since the first race in 1961, two races each season until 2021 when the track replaced their spring date with the Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt track (2021-2023).
The 2024 season is the first season since 2021 that both Bristol races will be run on the concrete surface. From 2021-2023 the spring Bristol race was run a dirt surface.
In 2025, Bristol Motor Speedway will host the first Major League Baseball game in Tennessee history inside its infield. On Aug. 2, 2025, the Atlanta Braves will play the Cincinnati Reds in an official regular season game during the MLB Speedway Classic.

Latest Track Storylines at Bristol Motor Speedway:

Rodney Atkins, a successful country music artist from East Tennessee, will perform at the pre-race concert for the Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 13. Atkins will perform on the infield stage at Bristol Motor Speedway at 12:45 p.m., leading into the popular driver introductions, with the NASCAR Cup Series race starting at 3 p.m. ET.
Atkins, who hails from Knoxville and was raised in Cumberland Gap, is a prominent figure in country music with eight top-five singles, over 14 million records sold, and 4 billion global streams.
Announced this week by officials from Food City and Bristol Motor Speedway, the Voice of the Vols Bob Kesling, Big Red Machine captain Johnny Bench and Vol Network Executive Steve Early have been named dignitaries for the tradition-rich Food City 500 on Sunday.
Kesling and Bench will serve as co-Grand Marshals for the NASCAR Cup Series race that will take the green flag on Sunday, April 13 at 3 p.m. ET at iconic Bristol Motor Speedway. They will give the command simultaneously for drivers to start their engines as the field of cars are lined up on pit road ready to begin the race.
It was also announced that Early, Vol Network Vice President and General Manager, was named Honorary Starter for the race. He will climb into the flag stand and wave the green flag at the start of the race.
To help race fans enjoy this weekend’s Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, track officials are making the 80-page commemorative souvenir program available for free in both printed and digital formats.
The souvenir program will once again be available in the reformatted Broadway Play “Playbill” style size that is more convenient for fans to carry the program with them while they are at the track. A limited number of printed programs will be available to guests to pick up at a variety of locations on property during the event, including at BMS Guest Services locations, BMS souvenir stands, BMS operated camp grounds and BMS ticket booths, while supplies last.