(Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
By Aaron Bearden

Post-race review and analysis from the NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. 

Who Won? 

Brad Keselowski. He snuck by the crashed cars of Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Joey Logano in the closing laps to score a surprising second triumph of 2020.

Food City presents the Supermarket Heroes 500 Results

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Elliott, Logano involved in late crash, “childish” discussion

Chase Elliott has experienced the full gamut of experiences at the front of a NASCAR Cup Series field in the tour’s last four races.

He was taken out in Darlington Raceway when Kyle Busch washed up the track and made contact with his left-rear quarter panel, eliciting anger and a well-timed middle finger before a Busch apology post-race. The Georgian lost a race to a late caution after pitting from the lead at Charlotte Motor Speedway and scored a redemptive victory when the caution didn’t fly at the same track four days later.

On Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway Elliott found himself in another crash at the front of the field, but this time it was he that washed up the track in the midst of a spirited challenge – and Joey Logano that ended up angry.

Elliott and Logano were involved in two crashes while racing for the win in the closing stages of Sunday’s Food City presents the Supermarket Heroes 500.

The first accident came on Lap 489, while Elliott and Logano were battling for second. Denny Hamlin made contact with the wall while leading and killed his momentum, allowing both drivers to step by him on the inside lane coming off of Turn 2.

Sensing an opportunity, Elliott attempted a dive under Logano into Turn 3. But the pair both washed up the track and Logano got loose, stacking Hamlin up behind him and leading the Joe Gibbs Racing veteran to spin into the lapped car of BJ McLeod.

The sequence gave Elliott the lead, with Logano restarting alongside him. Elliott surged to the top spot on the ensuing restart with five laps remaining, but Logano rose up behind him in second and quickly mounted a challenge for the win.

It took him two laps to do it, but Logano seemed to clear Elliott for the lead amid light contact off of Turn 2 with three laps remaining.

But Elliott wasn’t content to run second. He dove deep into Turn 3 in a final attempt to retake the top spot.

Things quickly went wrong from there.

Elliott didn’t have grip. He washed up the track.

The two made contact and smacked the wall.

Just like that, both drivers were eliminated from contention.

Brad Keselowski dove under the pair to take the lead and an unexpected win. The rest of the field passed them, too, and without a caution to help the duo, they dropped deep in the running order over the final two laps.

Less than a minute after battling for the win, Logano and Elliott took the checkered flag in 21st and 22nd, respectively. With Keselowski celebrating nearby on the straightaway, the pair each climbed out of their cars – Elliott looking away while Logano stared at him intensely. The two talked on pit road moments later, with neither side taking much satisfaction from the encounter.

“He wrecked me,” Logano said afterward. “He got loose underneath me.

“The part that’s frustrating is that afterward a simple apology — like be a man and come up to someone and say, ‘Hey, my bad.’ But I had to force an apology, which, to me, is childish.

“Anyways, man, we had a good recovery with our Autotrader Mustang and had a shot to win. That’s all you can hope for. I passed him clean. It’s hard racing at the end, I get that. It’s hard racing, but, golly, man, be a man and take the hit when you’re done with it.”

Elliott made no apologies for battling hard for the win, but accepted the blame for the crash.

“Just going for the win,” he said. “Trying to get a run underneath him and got really loose… As soon as I turned off the wall I had zero chance in making it, so I’ll certainly take the blame.

“I feel like I had to keep him behind me right there to win the race. I hate we both wrecked, but we can’t go back in time now.”

Thus ends a chaotic two weeks for Elliott, who both crashed and was crashed out of potential wins, and both won and lost races based upon the appearance, or lack thereof, of a late caution.

Shades of old Bristol

The much-lauded “old Bristol” may never come back, but the sort of calamity it was known for made an appearance in NASCAR’s return to the half-mile oval.

Sunday’s 500-lap race saw 17 cautions totaling 102 laps under yellow, with the field wrecking before it could get to a Lap 20 competition caution to check tire degradation. The race’s myriad yellows were the most Bristol had seen since 2006, when the then-one lane, bottom-feeding affair saw 18 cautions for 104 laps.

The biggest crash in the group came on Lap 230, just before the end of Stage 2. In the midst of a battle inside of the top-15, Matt Kenseth got loose at the exit of Turn 2. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was stacked up behind him, and a rising Jimmie Johnson accidentally caught the Mississippian’s left-rear quarter panel from behind.

What resulted was a vicious crash, with Stenhouse spinning into the inside wall before washing up the track in front of the field. Kurt Busch, Tyler Reddick and Cole Custer all piled into Stenhouse’s No. 47 Chevrolet, causing heavy damage that eliminated all but Busch from the race.

“I saw (Stenhouse) get spun, and I saw him go down but then I couldn’t see him anymore,” Reddick said. “I was worried if I checked up too much, I’d get caught up in it, but it didn’t matter and I got caught up in it anyway. Just a tough situation and a tough way to end our day.”

Alex Bowman plowed in behind them, also being eliminated from the race with heavy damage in the process. “I just couldn’t get stopped on time,” he said.

The incident was just one of many on the day. Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin had their aforementioned crashes while battling for the lead. It was a bad day for drivers named Ryan, with Ryan Newman spinning twice and Ryan Blaney suffering a seemingly innocent mid-race spin in second before having the front of his car destroyed by contact from Ty Dillon.

“I probably shouldn’t have been pushing that hard, but trying to get back to the lead,” Blaney said. “I thought we found some speed up there, just a mistake on my part. I hate it for Menards and Richmond and everybody on this 12 team. After having two strong weeks, you go and you wreck not even halfway, so that’s just a bummer. We’ll go to Atlanta and see what we can do.”

Another big accident befell a large portion of the field on Lap 465, with a shunt that included Martin Truex Jr., Aric Almirola and Erik Jones among others. Kevin Harvick spun from the top-five, numerous others crashed throughout the pack and by race’s end nearly every car bore the scars of one or more accidents throughout the day.

It was chaos.

Or – as fans so lovingly refer to it – Bristol, baby.

Keselowski’s late strike

Brad Keselowski is making a habit out of stealing wins when the opportunity arises.

For the second consecutive Sunday, Keselowski found himself running within sight of the lead as the laps wound down. He sat third in the final five laps at Bristol Motor Speedway, trailing Chase Elliott and Joey Logano as the duo engaged in a war for a trip to victory lane.

When the two made contact, Keselowski was positioned to strike. He surged under the pair, kept Clint Bowyer at bay and scored an unlikely victory after a difficult 500 laps.

“We kind of got a Christmas present here in Bristol,” Keselowski joked. “We’ll take it.

“We were in position and able to strike when it counted with the Discount Tire Ford Mustang. Joey and Chase got together there. I don’t know what all caused it, but we were just in position to strike and here we are in Victory Lane.”

The run was Keselowski’s second sneaky victory of NASCAR’s return stretch. Last Sunday he’d been running second to Elliott in the Coca-Cola 600 when a caution flew as the race was entering its final two laps. Elliott’s team elected to pit for fresh tires, but Keselowski stayed out and earned a surprising win.

He won once again at Elliott’s expense on Sunday, a result he attributed as much to his team’s work ethic to get him there as he did to fateful strokes of luck. Just like that he’s become an early championship threat, tying Logano for the most guaranteed playoff points thus far with 12.

“I think everybody on this Discount Tire Ford Mustang team is gonna go to Vegas,” Keselowski said. “Is it open yet? Because things have been going our way from the luck of the draw on the qualifying to the last few laps there. …

“An incredible day. I’m so happy for the team. This was a never-give-up effort. That’s what we’re becoming as a team.”

Other Notes

  • He couldn’t get to Brad Keselowski at the end, but second-place finished Clint Bowyer was thinking about it. “The 2 car (Keselowski) hit the 6 car (Ryan Newman) into me and clobbered my whole left side,” he said. “I was needing that 2 car to be a little bit closer. I wasn’t gonna feel bad about moving him, but it just didn’t materialize.”
  • Erik Jones has found strong form since NASCAR returned. Throw out his 26th-place result at Charlotte on Thursday, and the Joe Gibbs Racing prospect has three top-10s and an average finish of 7.25.
  • Austin Dillon scored back-to-back top-10s to close out NASCAR’s busy two-week return schedule, finishing sixth at Bristol. It was the first time Dillon had accomplished the feat since November 2018 at Texas Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway.
  • Kurt Busch’s car looked more like to win a demolition derby than a race after sustaining heavy damage in the Stenhouse crash, but his team rallied to steal a seventh-place result. The Monster Energy Chevrolet – not one straight panel on it,” he said. “We went through a lot of damage, went through a lot of looseness early in the race. Man, we had a lot of lucky breaks that fell our way there at the end to be able to come home seventh.”
  • Both Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth were involved in incidents throughout the day, but the pair each survived the chaos to salvage finishes of 15th and 16th, respectively. Both drivers will likely need a win to make the playoffs at this stage.
  • Timmy Hill can’t match his iRacing prowess with MBM Motorsports, but the Maryland native is still capable of respectable runs. Hill quietly notched a lead-lap finish on Sunday in 19th – the second-best performance of his Cup Series career.
  • Hidden just beyond the top-10 was another strong day for Front Row Motorsports. John Hunter Nemechek rattled off a 13th-place result, continuing a streak of strong runs that could make him a fringe playoff contender with some summer luck. Right behind him in 14th was Michael McDowell, scoring his best result since the Daytona 500.
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Aaron Bearden Beat Breakdown Bristol Motor Speedway Featured NASCAR Cup Series